AUSTRALIAN WOOL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 12

AUSTRALIAN WOOL

HEAVY TURNOVER

REDUCED WOOL CLIP

Australian wool sales to the end of May represented a turnover of _ 31,771,44,3, compared with £28,544,707 dining the lirst eleven months of hist season, an increase of £3,226,078. Sales, including the quota of wool carried over from the previous season, reached a total of 2,807,332 bales, coinpaved with 2,552,584 bales during the corresponding period of last season, an increase of 224,748 bales. -The average price for greasy wool-was £11 4s Sd per bale, or 8.65 d per pound, as compared with averages of £11 Os 4d per bale and 8.5 d per pound last season. The value of the wool sold and the all-round averages per bale and averages at per pound during the first eleven months of the present and previous seasons .ire:— Season. Realised. Per bale. Per lb. £ £ s. U. (1. ID-.2-SS "il, 771,4-15 11 0 4 5.83 1...1-:** i _8,..'!4,7fi7 11 1 1 8.0 IO.iO-.'U .... 20,781,527 11 4 7 S.S 192f1-M .... 2!>,445,514 1_ 7 2 10.5 11)28-21) ..... 55,239,-11 21 10 1 10.S Average prices for greasy and scoured wools in the Commonwealth centres during the first eleven mouths of the current season conic to 8.6 d per pound for greasy and 13.5 d for scoured, or 8.85 d for both scoured and greasy wool. DECREASED QUANTITY. Winchconibe, Carson, and Co., of Sydney, anticipate a decreaso of approximately 700,000 bales in the quantity of wool available for sale in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa during the 1933---3-34 season. Australian wool receipts for tho season now closing totalled 2,954,000 bales, and the estimate for 1933-34 is 2,675,000 bates. Australia carried- over 150,000 bales last • season, and will have no carry-over this year. Therefore, the quantity available in the Commonwealth will be reduced by 429,000 bales. NewZealand carried over. 240,000 bales last season, and only 75,000 bales this year. South Africa is considered likely to show a decline of 100,000. bales, in production during the coming season. The United States clip, of which 60 per cent, is merino, showed a decrease of about 84,000 bales in 1932, and will probably display, further reduction this year. Nature has administered a substantial cheek to the world's wool supplies. The.decrease is not confined to merinos. The output of coarse wools is dropping, the Russian clip having declined'about 600,000 bales. -, MARKET MAY BE HARDER. Present indications point to existing prices being fully maintained in the new season. By no stretch of imagination can wool be regarded as dear even at recent advanced -lev-els, Winchconibe,' Carson remark; but the wool-industry should unquestionably be wary of becoming overconfident in regard to future prices. Rates for wool cannot outpace world purchasing power, which is less than it was some years ago. But in terms of gold wool is etill so low in cost that scope for appreciable rises in prices exists. In French currency, on a gold basis, the value of average 64's merino tops is 20d, arid the price of them between. 1909 and 1913 ranged from 25d to 30d. Rates,of exchange may certainly alter. That "possibility cannot be overlooked in the Commonwealth, where exchange has played such a large part in prices in, Australian currency. Late advanced prices for tops and yarns have so far not checked sales of those semi-manufactures. On the Continent turnover has expanded. The outlook for the sheep's staple is, therefore, more promising than for some time.