2012 Australasian Yearling Sales.

Removing the obvious buy backs & the passed in lots...

930 Lots sold

573 sold for less than 15k (61.6%)

432 sold for 10k or less (46.45%)

252 sold for 6k or less (27.09%)

In rough terms...

1 in every 3 yearlings struggled to make 6k.

Nearly half of all yearlings offered sold for 10k or less.

3 in every 5 offered failed to reach a sale price that was equal to the basic cost of production.

In terms of the immediately above, it is actually a worse picture than that even, although you would not think it possible.
Remembering that there are of course Sale charges due & payable on all sales...... and that means there are in fact even more yearlings, those that reached actual sale prices in the 16k-17k-18k range, that once those charges were levied & paid also became line ball to negative in terms of returns to their breeders vs production costs.

The recently announced and heartening NSW Breeders Bonus payments have come none too soon it seems.
I expect the above figures would also give Studs throughout the Southern Hemisphere great cause for pause, especially so prior to them setting their 2012/13 Season fees.