What happened this week: After the excitement of the previous week things slowed down this week. Mainly for two reasons. Tanners really preparing for the holidays and who had to buy, bought already with few exceptions or sellers who had mainly sold what they thought they needed to sell. The exceptions are the tanners who are related to the South German market and few sellers which find here and there small overhanging quantities they would like to place. In South Germany the final purchasing round before September takes place and everyone is excited to see how far the abattoir prices can be squeezed down. More than what has happened in the North what would leave more space for declines with us over the summer,  less or the same what would be another indicator that things are stabilizing for the time being. Italian tanners trying also this week to push prices lower, but we haven’t heard of any real success so far. The stories about claims and all other market related problems from that market are frightening and it seems that this trade gets never more educated as also stories about sellers tricks in March/April are told to justify one or the other ‘vendetta’.

Asia confirmed further interest for hides for August without buying yet, but it seems quite sure that – at least for dairy cows – there is more interest around at present levels which are so much more attractive than our counterparts from the USA.  Considering European cows to be in the early 50’s they are still a bargain the Asians can hardly withstand. We don’t know who has circulated the news that the ban on German hides has been lifted in Korea but it is one more nice story told and rapidly spread around the globe without being true. Sometimes a bit like hide prices…. Up to today only Austria and Belgium are open and why these two countries out of the EU will remain one more secret of the related officials.  However, we have to admit that we feel confident that the market for our hides in Korea cant be closed for much longer anymore. We found it also quite interesting during the week that inquiries for sheep/lamb became much more active  after it had become very slow since mid May. So far there were only inquiries but also here we have to understand that tanners are in a decision taking process which might be related to fairs held in Russia. Sales for the week were reasonable and mostly on official

asking levels or marginally below.   The kill: Severely reduced to about 70 % of a normal week, so we have reached holiday levels. Good export opportunities for beef to Russia keep the kill for bulls over proportionally high  while the cow kill is low. Nothing unusual for this time of the year.What do we expect? Short term we should fall into the holiday agony with only very little movements in the market. Medium term the situation remains a mystery to us. From the price structure we should be safe with our prices being fairly below international levels. However, we can not ignore the fact that the rumours about large unsold wetblue stocks in the USA do not disappear. Supposing that these stocks are available we are in the hand of the owners if, when and at what price they decide to try or need to move them as this could change the tone and set new directions. In any case this will more effect the side leather markets rather than the cow market. If these hides are available and come suddenly into the market it would, however destroy much of the validity of statistics as well as much of the confidence of the  market information of the eventual seller.  Apart from this mysterious option we still believe in a stable market.