Weekly Market Wrap

Adrian Field Trading Manager

With Adrian Field, Melbourne
Assistant Trading Manager

February 6, 2004

Market holds the line

THE eastern market showed signs of making a solid recovery early in the week, but it weakened on Thursday.

In Melbourne the market rose 3 cents per kilogram on Tuesday and 4c/kg on Wednesday, before falling 4c/kg on Thursday.

Most of the decline was in the finer wool categories, which is a little concerning heading into sales (Tasmania and Newcastle) that comprise large fine wool volumes.

Wools from 23-28 microns were about 20c/kg dearer, whilst 18.5-19.5 wools were about 10c/kg cheaper.

Overall the indicator finished 1c/kg higher than last week, which was encouraging considering the sudden lift in the amount of wool offered - almost 10,000 bales more than initially anticipated a fortnight ago.

Next week's sales will be held in Launceston, Fremantle and Sydney with a total of 57,000 bales on offer.

Launceston will have a traditional large offering of mainly fine and superfine Merino wools. The wool in Tasmania is understood to be some of the best seen in years due to the very good seasonal conditions there.

With Tasmania now becoming recognised as a "clean'', contamination-free state for growing wool, demand is expected to be solid. There is therefore likely to be little change in prices.

The coming week could be interesting, because there has been significant speculation that it could be the start of better times ahead.

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