WOOL IMPROVES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3989, 10 December 1937, Page 5

WOOL IMPROVES

THE WELLINGTON SALE CONTINENTAL BUYERS ACTIVE. Prices realised at the first Wellington wool sale of the 1937-38 season on Wednesday showed a small but definite improvement compared with those which ruled at the opening sale at Auckland on November 27 and at Napier last Friday. To-day’s prices showed an advance of one halfpenny per lb for average sorts and up to one penny for good wools on those of the Napier sale, which was roughly one halfpenny better than Auckland. A feature of the sale was the remarkable activity of Continental buyers, notably France and Germany, who bought heavily and generally dominated the market. A year ago Japan was most prominent and forced prices up, but on Wednesday little, it any wool, was bought on Japanese account. Bradford operated cautiously and sparingly. Some good orders for super wools were filled on Canadian account. New Zealand mills were active and bought wools suited to their requirements. For the first sale at Wellington the offering was unusually small. The limit fixed by the New Zealand Wool Committee was 30,000 bales, a quantity that was disposed of easily at last year’s December sale. The fall in wool prices during the past six months and the disappointing opening of the season at Auckland, however, had weighed heavily on the minds of growers, with the result that the quantity catalogued for Wednesday's auction was only 20,500 bales. Eleventh hour withdrawals further reduced this to about 19,500 bales, of which about 88 per cent was sold at auction.