The final sale of the year saw all types across the entire merino spectrum experience strong demand at Tuesday’s opening sale in Melbourne, with general rises of 20-40 cents being achieved.
Anecdotal reports on Wednesday morning suggested that some mills were finding Tuesdays price levels difficult to swallow, resulting in very little (if any) new business being transacted. However that did not stop the market racing ahead as buyers continued to fight hard to fill their existing orders, resulting in 16.5 through to 22 microns hitting new records in all three centres.
Thursday saw buyers finally become more selective in their purchases with merino fleece losing 20-30 cents in the Northern Region, and as much as 45 cents in the West (which is three hours behind).
By the close of trade, numerous records had been broken. The NRI pushed through the 1800 cents barrier, to close the week at 1841, while the total value of wool sold for the year surpassed the 3 billion dollar market for the first time since AWEX’s records began in 1995.
Source AWEX