News

The Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee met on Wednesday 14th November to review its forecast for the 2018/19 season. As I said in the Weekly Newsletter of 12th October, the Committee decided to bring forward its meeting from December to November, partly in response to concern around the world about the wool supply available from Australia this season. The new forecast from the Committee is that shorn wool production will be 305 mkg in 2018/19, down by 10.8% on 341 mkg in 2017/18.…

The three Finalists for the 2018 NCWSBA Wool Broker Award gave presentations at the NCWSBA Annual General Meeting and Forum on 23rd August. The three Finalists, Samantha Wan (Elders), Cassandra Baile (AWN) and Candice Cordy (Landmark) all gave fantastic presentations, highlighting the diverse roles of wool brokers and their great contributions. There were around 50 people in the audience attending the AGM and all were hugely impressed. Annabelle Cleeland (Editor, Stock and Land), Ed Storey…

From 2nd July the NCWSBA office will be located at the AWH Wool Selling Centre in Tottenham, here in Melbourne. The new address is Gate 4, 29 Frederick Rd, Tottenham Vic 3012. The new email address will be info@ncwsba.org. Chris Wilcox's email address is chris.wilcox@ncwsba.org. The NCWSBA phone number will be +61 (0)419 344 259.

The 9th February edition of the Weekly Newsletter covered the Merino price Supercycles in the past 30 years. These Supercycles differ from the regular price cycles that the wool market experiences - from trough to peak of about 7-9 months followed by a slide to a new trough. These regular cycles are driven by stocking and destocking decisions within the wool textile industry. Every so often we see a Supercycle, one which goes for much longer and involves a much greater increase in prices. The…

Since the start of the 2018/19 season to 2nd November, the EMI fell by 164 cents. There have been falls across all microns with the exception of the 32 Micron Price Guide, which has lifted by 6% (from a very low base). The largest fall has been recorded for the Merino Carding Indictor, which is 410 cents or 27% lower. Of the main fleece types, the biggest falls have been for wool of 16.5 micron and finer, which is down by 415 cents (or 14%) since the start of the season. The broad Merino wools…

The latest data on Chinese economic growth shows that the growth rate for the massive Chinese economy fell to 6.5% for the third quarter of 2018, down by an annualised growth rate of 6.7% in the second quarter. This is the slowest annualised growth rate that China has recorded since the Global Financial Crisis a decade ago. The growth rate was dragged down by weaker factory activity and lower infrastructure investment. Note that the Chinese economy is still growing at a relatively strong pace…

We are heading into the Autumn/Winter season in the Northern Hemisphere. This period, between October and January, is the most important for the volume of wool clothing sold annually in the major retail markets of China, the US, Japan, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Korea. A key indicator of how retail sales may go is consumer confidence in these countries. If consumers are confident, they are far more likely to spend, and spend on higher priced products, including wool…

The latest statistics on mulesing status from AWEX (sourced from the National Wool Declaration) shows that in the first quarter of the 2018/19 season that there was yet another lift in the proportion of wool offered in Australia and declared as Non Mulesed (NM), Pain Relief (PR) or Ceased Mulesing (CM). This wool accounted for 48.6% of all first-hand wool offered at auction in the July to September period. This compares with a share of 43.4% in the July-September 2017 period. NM-declared wool…

The latest data on wool tests from AWTA shows a sharp drop in the weight of wool tested in September compared with September 2017. For Australia, the volume of wool tested were down by 19.2% compared with September last year. While the volumes in September 2017 was up 9% year-on-year, the aggregate for the month this year is well below any year back at least to 2011/12. There were very large drops in wool tested in New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland, with a…

While Merino wool prices have risen throughout 2018, prices for competing fibres have been more variable, with prices for cotton and viscose falling but polyester and acrylic prices on the rise. This has changed the price relativity for wool prices against these other fibres. There has been a steady lift in the ratio for 21 micron wool against cotton to a record level of 8.16. For 18 micron wool, the price ratio against cotton has risen to 9.68, just shy of the record of 9.78 set on November…

Tensions between the US and China broke out into a full-scale trade war this week as the US announced a third round of import tariffs on goods from China. This latest batch imposes a 10% import duty on US$200 billion of goods from China (effective from 24th September). The first two rounds earlier this year imposed 25% tariffs on US$50 billion of goods imported from China. China retaliated each time with its own punitive import duties on US products, such as cotton, soybeans, wine, fruit and…

The 30th Nanjing Wool Market Conference was held in Nanjing, China last. As usual it was very well attended, with around 400 people attending, including a good number of people from outside of China, including from Australia, South Africa, the UK, the US, Uruguay, Argentina, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and India. It was a very interesting Conference. The NCWSBA Executive Director, Chris Wilcox, gave a presentation on the current situation in the Merino wool market titled “Unprecedented”. He…

The Winner of the 2016 NCWSBA Wool Broker Award was announced at the Wool Week dinner in Melbourne on 25th August. The Winner of the 2016 Award is Lachlan Sutton of Elders. In making their decision, the Selection Panel noted they found the calibre of all three presentations to be excellent. They also found it difficult to separate the finalists and that all would be very worthy winners. The Panel noted that some of the most pleasing aspects from the finalists were: their obvious passion and…

The winner of the 2015 National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia’s Wool Broker Award to recognise excellence in wool broking in Australia has been announced. Matthew Thomas of Landmark was selected by the independent Selection Panel as the winner. Andrew Howells of Elders and Todd Clark of Schute-Bell were the other two Finalists. The independent Selection Panel made their decision after the three Finalists gave presentations to at the NCWSBA Annual General Meeting held on Thursday,…