This week’s flat traders’ prices grew as a result of the persistently high hot roll coil (HRC) prices, but the weak demand caused traders to have conflicting ideas about the coming weeks' pricing. While some retailers believe that because it is the end of the month, demand is low due to financial circumstances and will pick up again with the new year, many other traders assert that neither the end of the year nor the beginning will have an impact on this because a reduction will inevitably occur as long as Turkey’s economic troubles persist.
Currently, workable domestic hot rolled sheet (HRS) prices are at $710-730/mt ex-warehouse, a $10/mt increase from last Friday, December 9.
“It appears that prices will continue to rise, of course, this is a positive thing, but there is a financial tightness in Turkey right now, so demand is still slow. We hope that demand will rise, but if the financial conditions persist after the New Year, demand will be poor again,” a retailer said to SteelOrbis.
Likewise, most traders in the cold rolled sheet (CRS) market are offering at $800-810/mt ex-warehouse, compared to $790-810/mt ex-warehouse last week. Nevertheless, the larger traders are heard to be selling aggressively at $840/mt ex-warehouse, which is not feasible in the present conditions.