Over the past week (August 12-19, 2009), cold rolled prices have trended down continuously at steeper rates than the previous week. While the sales activities have slowed down, some traders are busy selling out the stocks at low rates, resulting in prices dropping in chaos.
Product name |
Specification |
Category |
Average price (RMB/mt) |
Weekly change (RMB/mt) |
Price ($/mt) |
1.0 mm x 1,250 x C |
SPCC |
5,067 |
-266 |
742 |
|
CRS |
1.0 mm x 1,250 x 2,500 |
SPCC |
5,160 |
-290 |
755 |
While the domestic leading mills have remained unyieldingly in price policy, the market sale activities have in contrast slackened. The recent price hikes performed by WISCO and Baosteel have not propelled the market in a positive way as expected.
In addition, the price downtrend seen in the rebar and hot rolled markets have also been an important factor for the price decreases of cold rolled products. As some traders reported, the cost of the cold rolled materials are mostly below RMB 5,000/mt ($ 732/kmt), leaving a sound profit room. In addition to the sluggish market situation, traders are busy lowering prices in order to get more orders. This could be sited as the main reason for the current price decreases registered in the cold rolled market.
As of the week in question, the aggregate inventory in the main Chinese markets has shown a slight increase, especially in the eastern Chinese markets and then the southern Chinese markets. According to the census data, as of August 14, the cold rolled inventory in Shanghai market stood at 314,600mt, up 3,000 approximately compared with the previous week.
In general, Chinese cold rolled market has now enter into a downtrend movement. It's expected that the prices would go on dropping.