Australian wool growers are continuing to face the hardships of drought, causing brokers’ receivals to be way down. Buyers, exporters and traders are faced with earlier stock and trade losses, while machinery owners, garment makers and retailers face slow demand, sales and inventory devaluation.

However, the past seven days has been the best week of positive news that the season has produced. The USA and China came to some sort of understanding over their trade imbalance dispute. The UK election result has forged the path for pushing Brexit through, with that problem more relevant given the premium market that Europe is for apparel wool products. Another contributing factor to the market gains was the lack of the advertised quantity once again failing to materialise at auction. A little over 34,000 bales, or 12 per cent lower volume, eventually saw their way to the selling rostrum. Brokers passed in just 7.7 per cent of bales offered, as price levels gained rapidly. Purchasing was again dominated by the big players of each segment. Significant though was the step up by Chinese top makers on all Merino types and descriptions.

Significant quantities of wool have been held back by growers and decision making as to how and when that is dispersed will need close monitoring by their wool selling brokers.