The 26th sale of the 2019-20 South African wool season was split over two weeks amid the Covid-19 lockdown situation. The second part continued this week, consisting of 5,572 bales, of which 77% were sold. The offering mostly consisted of inferior wools and off-sorts. Thus, the wool market retracted further by 4.6% (705 points) down at R146.25 a kg clean, which largely reflected the quality of wool on offer.
This week, the rand traded stronger for the majority of the auction and only weakened later in the day to close very similar to the previous week. Thus, the market weakened 6.5% in US dollar terms.
There was still good competition for the very limited merino wools on offer, and the active aftersales pegged the clearance rate at 77%, as against 91.7% in the first part of the 26th sale.
The major buyers were Standard Wool SA (1,804), Lempriere SA (733), Stucken & Co (567), and Modiano SA (501).
