Sheep Industry News November 2024

$240 per cwt. in the Spring to about $140 per cwt. in early October. Light weight slaughter lambs have experienced a decline of similar magnitude. On the meat side, the lamb cutout has traded in a fairly narrow band, between $460 and $480 per cwt. all year. The cutout remains higher than last year, $472 versus $464 last year at this time. Supplies are likely pressuring live prices lower. Both slaugh ter and production are moving closer to year ago levels, which should provide the opportunity for some higher prices head ing into the holidays. Lamb prices tend to increase to the end of the year from late the summer-early fall lows. increased during the last several weeks in mid-October. While some improved buyer interest – particularly from Chinese buyers – has been noted, sharply fewer bales have been of fered in Australian auctions compared to this time last year. Since early September an average of 30,414 bales have been offered for sale compared to 41,429 bales for the same weeks last year. Fewer bales offered combined with a little more interest is boosting prices. Longer term, world wool production this year is forecasted WOOL Wool prices across all microns – from 17 to 32 – have

to decline about 2 percent from last year. Profitability con tinues to suffer from economic growth uncertainty in many countries around the globe. Economic worries in China related to real estate and stock market problems have slowed the economy and cut into processor demand. As a major buyer in the world market, economic problems there cut processor demand for wool and cut Chinese domestic consumer demand. Some economic stimulus strategies by the Chinese government may provide a boost to processor demand and prices. Both the wool and lamb sides of the industry’s revenue stream are significantly impacted by exchange rates. On the wool side, it gets a little more complicated as the market is dominated by Australia on the supply side and China on the demand side. The interaction of exchange rates between all these currencies are quickly translated into relative prices between our countries. Generally, a weaker (in this case Aus tralian) dollar makes buying from that country advantageous to buyers. The trend has been for the U.S. dollar to weaken relative to the Australian dollar in recent months. While the exchange rate certainly impacts prices in each country, other factors such as domestic production, transportation costs and de mand can be more important.

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November 2024 • Sheep Industry News • 7