News

The National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia and its members have stumped up in support of the wool industry’s own charity, the Michael Manion Wool Industry Foundation. The money donated by NCWSBA will help the Foundation continue its vital work supporting those in need in rural Australia. The President of NCWBA, John Colley, presented a cheque for $8,000 to the Chairman of the Foundation, Ken Stock, at the Melbourne Wool Selling Centre on Thursday, 18th June. The money was…

The Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee (AWPFC) met on Wednesday 29th April 2020 and reviewed its forecast of Australian shorn wool production for 2019/20. It also decided on its first forecast for 2020/21. The Committee revised its forecast for 2019/20 to 281 mkg greasy. This is a 6.3% decline on shorn wool production in 2018/19. It is higher than the 272 mkg greasy that the Committee forecast in November, in line with the AWTA test data to end March. The Committee’s first…

The latest data on wool exports by the five major wool producing and exporting countries shows the extent of the decline in raw wool demand by the major wool processing countries so far in 2020. However, there are some tentative signs of improvement in the raw wool demand by China, the largest wool processing country. Data on Australian wool exports in July shows that the volume of exports to all destinations were down by 8%. This decline came despite an 8% increase in exports to China. This is…

One positive result of the larger decline in wool prices compared to that of the decline in prices for competing fibres is that wool price ratio against cotton and synthetics has fallen back sharply since March. The fall in the ratio of the wool prices has been stunning, particularly against cotton. The current price ratios for 21 micron and 28 micron wool against cotton are the lowest since May 2011. The price ratio for 18 micron wool is the lowest since March 2014. These are dramatic falls…

Textile fibre prices have been hit the hardest of the various commodities by the COVID-19 pandemic, probably because of the severe impact of COVID-19 restrictions on clothing retail sales around the world, and the impact on consumer spending generally. Wool prices have fallen sharply in the past few months, particularly in A$ terms. In A$ terms, the EMI is down by 57% since the start of 2020 and down by 16% since the start of the 2020/21 season. In US$ terms, the EMI is 37% lower than at the…

Prices in the Australian wool market fell sharply this week, continuing the trend since the start of the 2020/21 season. Since the end of June, the EMI has fallen by 165 cents or 15%. Proportionately, the largest decline has been for Merino Cardings, which are down by 26%. Of the fleece wools, wool of between 19 micron and 22 micron have fallen by 15% to 19%, while Crossbred wool has declined by between 7% and 15%, with the 32 MPG down the least. Prices for superfine wool (18.5 micron and…

The latest data shows that US imports of clothing plummeted in the first six months of 2020 as the large decline in retail sales of clothing (see the Weekly Newsletter of 10th July) has hit hard. US imports of clothing in the January-June period this year were down by 28% in quantity and down by 30% in value. It is the lowest total volume in the first half a year since 2009 (as the Global Financial Crisis hit) and the lowest total value since 2002. All fibres have been hit similarly by the…

The latest data on Australian wool exports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics were a bit of a pleasant surprise. It shows that the volume of wool exported from Australia in June actually increased in June compared with June 2019. The increase was only small (+3%) and the export volume in June 2019 was the lowest June monthly total for many years, but, still, any increase in the current environment is very welcome. The reason that the volume of wool exports increased in June was due…

Are there any signs of a recovery in economic conditions as parts of the world resume some form of normality from the COVID-19 pandemic? One gauge of economic conditions is the Composite Leading Indicators (CLI) from the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The Indicators are designed to provide early signals of turning points in business cycles. Wool prices have, to some extent at least, followed the trends in the CLI measure for China and the major advanced wool…

Wool prices fell by more in the past year than have prices for the other major apparel textile fibres. One result of this larger decline is that the wool price ratio against both cotton and synthetics has fallen back sharply in the past 3 months. Based on the Eastern Market Indicator (EMI). The drop is particularly marked compared with cotton prices, with the current ratio below the average level seen in ten years between 2010 and 2019. The ratio is at the lowest level since June 2014. It is,…

The fraught and disheartening 2019/20 season is drawing to a close. The season was a confidence-shattering disappointment after the two previous seasons in which prices rose sharply and hit record high levels, with the EMI averaging 1739 c/kg in 2017/18 and 1939 c/kg in 2018/19. Overall, the EMI fell by 605 c/kg from the close of the 2018/19 season to the close of the 2019/20 season, a 35% decline. It was also lower by 430 UScents/kg (-36%), 375 €cents/kg (-36%) and 2801 RMB/kg (-34%). All the…

It is with very mixed emotions that I deliver to you the President’s report for the last 12 months. It has been a year of turmoil, that continues to evolve on a day by day basis as I write this report. Our beloved wool industry continues to be smashed on all sides. To believe we survived drought, fires and floods, only to be confronted by COVID – 19 really put the icing on the cake. 2020 will long be remembered, for all the wrong reasons. Wool is basically totally discretionary spend and with…

The NCWSBA Annual General Meeting was held on Thursday, 27th August, followed by a meeting of the NCWSBA Board. It was a very different event compared with the event in past years. Because of COVID-19 restrictions, the meeting was held as a Zoom videoconference and the AGM was restricted to the business of the AGM. Unlike previous years, there was no updates from AWTA, AWEX and AWI, nor did we have presentations by the Finalists for the NCWSBA Wool Broker Award (the Award has been postponed to…

The NCWSBA Wool Broker Award for 2020 has been launched! This is the ninth year the Award has been offered. This year’s Award is again sponsored by AWTA (as the industry sponsor) and Sheep Central (as the media sponsor). The Award recognises excellence in wool broking by a younger member of our industry – be it client servicing, auctioneering, innovation or other aspects of wool broking. This year’s Award winner will be granted an all-expenses paid trip to Kyoto, Japan to attend the 2021 IWTO…