WOOL SALES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22368, 15 September 1934, Page 14

WOOL SALES

. A WEAKENING MARKET (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 8. No -matter what may be said to the contrary, the tone at the Sydney wool gales, which opened this week, has done nothing to dispel the trade’s anxiety as to the immediate future. The gap between average wools and inferior wools, so apparent at the Brisbane sales, has been further widened. The depressing feature of the sales is not so much the low prices that have been offered for inferior sorts, but the fact that there is practically no competition for them. This is taken to mean that inferior wools are having a steadily weakening effect on the whole market. It is true, of course, that the Brisbane prices have been fairly well maintained in Sydney, but that is not enough to reassure those who are so vitally interested in the trend of the market. It is disturbing to realise that any departure from the Brisbane levels has been in favour of buyers. The Sydney sales are regarded as the most important in Australia, and it was not generally anticipated that prices for average fleece wools would be 5 per cent, below the Brisbane parity. As the Sydney sales proceeded the market remained firm, but that was all. There was it crumb of comfort in the fact that on Thursday the clearances were greater than they were on Monday. Japan bought more wool than any other mil ion, and the importance of the demand from this quarter cannot be over-estimated. One hesitates to think what the state of the market would be in the,absence of Japanese competition. The top price of the week was paid by Bradford, and this was IGd. The same wool would have brought a great deal mpre than that 32 months ago. Compared with the rates current at the opening of the selling season last year, this week’s prices in Sydney are as follows: Good fleece wools, 20 per cent, lower. Average fleece wools, 20 to 25 per cent, lower. Inferior fleece wools, 30 per cent, lower. Good piece wools:, 20 per cent. lower. Inferior piece wools! 30 per cent lowr. The absence of Continental competition caused tho maximum decline to occur in types usually selected for that market—namely, inferior fleeces and pieces,. In these sections the withdrawals have been very heavy. Australia anxiously awaits a more favourable turn of the market.