Market Morsel: Wool the victim.

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.

On a monthly basis, we compare the fibres, as it provides a quick outlook on the market structure across the major 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)

Generally, the fibres follow one another quite closely due to their end-use being similar. This is a similar pattern show between many other commodities, such as wheat and corn.

This month we have seen a mixed bag of changes. Wool has dropped, as significant 7% (on our index). The unnatural fibres (acrylic and polyester) were largely flat.

Cotton on the other hand has seen strong growth, with Chinese futures up 5.25% and ICE up 4.8%.