MARKET CONDITIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 150, 22 December 1938, Page 12

MARKET CONDITIONS

A YORKSHIRE POINT OF VIEW

(By Air Mail, trom "The Post's" London Representative.)

LONDON, November 28. When discussing the coming wool sales in New Zealand, the "Yorkshire Post" said that it was doubtful whether, in recent years, the crossbred marketing season had opened amid more interesting conditions than prevail at the moment. "Although statistics show that aggregate wool stocks in the United Kingdom are above average for this time of the year, the position of crossbred wool is exactly the ' reverse. Merino wool is in more generous supply, consumption of which has recently been below normal, while consumption of crossbred wools has been brisk. "This state of affairs has been developing gradually in the last few years, it is stated so that the conditions in sdme directions may be described as acute. During the past year the trade has seen a succession of abnormal phases of demand, both in England and on the Continent, with the result that reserves have been depleted considerably. "The demand for Jubilee and Coronation decorations, an improvel call for crossbred tops and yarns for Germany, a substantial export of crosstops to China prior to the Sino-Japan-ese War, a sudden extension in Russia's call for crossbred wool, and a more general European interest in such wool for purposes of uniform cloths —all in addition to a healthy, normal home trade —are phases sufficient to demonstrate the more complete clearance of crossbred wools and their products in the past year or two.

"As a result, consuming demand is nearer to current production of the raw material than at any previous stage of recent years. So finely balanced are immediate available supplies of raw material that crossbred topmakers who may be invited to sell forward at less money for delivery early next year are very chary of any such procedure.

"Whatever the more remote future may have in store, the immediate outlook for the New Zealand season foreshadows a strong opening to the sales, if only on account of pressure of urgent demand."

Subsequent prospects are more difficult to assess, and there are students of trade trends who advance certain theories on the ground that the general margin of difference between merino and crossbred wool values is .■ more narrow than usual.