During the week ending July 2, hot rolled coil (HRC) prices in the Chinese domestic market have moved down slightly. Average HRC prices in the local Chinese market can be viewed in the SteelOrbis price reports section.
In the past week, Chinese steelmaker Shagang Group announced an increase in its hot rolled prices for July, thereby providing some support for market prices. However, amid slack market activity, traders are still wary as regards prices.
As many traders indicate, with some new arrivals in the market in the near term the domestic HRC spot market will come under some pressure from the inventory side, despite the good performance in the export market. As for the medium term, the temporary recovery of export volumes may be insufficient to resolve the oversupply issue in the market. It is expected that domestic HRC prices will continue to follow a downward trend in the coming week.