And with the last wool sales being held today before the Christmas break, there is no solid indication of the direction of the market when sales start again in mid-January.

The Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) lost value each day last week, to close on 1168 cents a kilogram – however, it’s not all bad news.

The EMI at this rate is still 161c/kg higher than in the same week last year, while the season average of 1235c/kg is 309c/kg above the average at the same time last year.

Western Wool Marketing auctioneer Tim Byrne, Wagga Wagga, said while the market had eased slightly, prices were still at fairly good levels, especially against last year’s comparison.

“The softening of the market is probably due to the large offering last week, as well as the political and financial unrest in Europe,” Mr Byrne said.

He said they were expecting smaller offerings when sales kicked off again in the new year, which should mean prices would stabilise as supply would be tighter.

“We don’t expect there will be a lot of volume in the market during the autumn, as growers have been selling rather than holding on to the wool.”

While the fine wools have been most affected by the price fluctuations, medium wool prices were still reasonably strong.

Mr Byrne said medium-type wools had held up well all the way through the year and were close to 200c/kg higher across the board than last year.

With 21-micron wool making between 1299c/kg and 1304c/kg last week, Mr Byrne said prices were well above 1000c/kg, which is what growers had been hoping for during the past few tougher years.

Landmark Risk Management manager Anthony Boatman said the prices for finer microns were lower than the levels of 12 months ago, making them good value for buyers compared to medium micron wools.

After peaking in March, most fine wools had declined since March, but suffered the most falls during September and October when the rest of the market came off from the peak in June.

Mr Boatman said the volatility of the market lately was due to the economic news from Europe.

“The Italian and Greek debt situation has effected all markets, and wool has not been immune,” he said.

However, Italy actually increased imports of raw and semi-processed wool by 29 per cent so far in the 2011-12 season, which Mr Boatman said was a good sign, but this was likely to slow down given the uncertainty around current financial conditions.

Due to low supply, Mr Boatman expects the wool market to be strong for the first part of next year.