Market Morsel: Get your monthly fibre intake.

Fibre | 13th April 2021 | By Andrew Whitelaw

Market Morsel

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. The same can be said of fibres. No fibre is an island; they are part of the whole.

Early last week, we wrote about the relationship between copper as an economic indicator and wool. This was in the article ‘I CU Wool’. In this less esoteric article, we look at the comparison of the various fibre types.

The chart below shows the following fibre types as an index, with 2015 being 100. The index’s value is that it allows the reader to quickly determine the rate of growth easily with pricing at different levels of magnitude.

  • Zhengzhou cotton futures
  • ICE cotton futures
  • Chinese polyester & acrylic
  • Eastern market indicator (wool)

In general terms, the various fibres tend to follow quite similar patterns. Interestingly during the past month, the natural fibres of cotton and wool lost 1-2%. Acrylic and polyester, on the other hand, gained 14 and 5%.

After fibre markets peaked during 2018, there has been a general downtrend with the low coinciding with the COVID-19 lockdowns worldwide. The second half of 2020 has seen a resurgence in pricing, which has flowed through into 2021.

Tags

  • Wool
  • Cotton