During the week ending December 27, Chinese hot rolled coil (HRC) market has continued to follow a slight downward trend, with prices fluctuating within a very narrow range. Despite these slight declines, local traders and end-users in China are still adopting a wait-and-see stance. Average HRC prices in China can be viewed in the SteelOrbis price reports section.
In the Chinese domestic HRC market, while end-users have been mainly purchasing material at small tonnages to meet their urgent needs, local traders have not been active in placing orders. In general, buyers are not willing to replenish their inventories before the New Year.
Lately, Chinese mills' ex-work HRC prices are higher than the market prices for a long period, so local traders cannot adjust their prices in a wide range. Thus, most traders have reduced their orders and adopted a wait-and-see stance, and this has caused mills in some regions of China to to fail in filling their orders books for December.
Despite all these, HRC inventories are not currently high in China, so prices are not expected to drop dramatically. However, since market prices lack sufficient support, it's expected that the HRC prices may continue to register a slight weak trend in the short period.