The Italian merchant bar market continues to lack brilliance, with prices continuing to follow a decreasing trend - This was the overall picture of the Italian merchant bar market which emerged from a discussion which included the participation of Gianfranca Bellicini (Ferriere Scabi), Giuseppe Bricchetti (Carminati Distribuzione), Emanuele Marostica and Marco Sbaraini (Gruppo Manni), Giuseppe Masserdotti (Stefana), Maurizio Pastorino (Metalgoi), and Francesco Strada (Strada Ing. Achille).
Merchant bars: Current situation - Just as for beams, merchant bars in Italy's domestic market also experienced a slide in sales prices during recent weeks. The reasons are similar to those behind the similar trend in beams: the slowdown in demand with respect to the levels registered earlier in the year, and the strong competition between traders. Compared to the beams market, however, merchant bar consumption was characterized by greater stability of consumption (linked to the many and varied fields of application of merchant bar). Nevertheless, in the merchant bar market as well there is a psychological effect which is contributing to the downtrend of quotation levels.
As for predictions, from now until the end of the year no great changes are expected to be seen in the current trend.
One market, three perspectives - During the course of the discussion, three different points of view surfaced as to the prospects for early 2008.
Merchant bar producers display optimism. The increase in production costs and the reawakening of scrap (which should begin to climb again from the first days of next year) should lead to an upward movement in quotations for this product, thus sparking an increase that should last for the whole of the first quarter.
The rerollers, on the other hand, underline the difficulty they are facing in the current situation. In recent weeks, the cost of purchasing billets has been on a continuous rise, whereas the sales prices of merchant bars have been declining. The result has been a compression of profit margins for rerollers, who are hoping that relief will come from a rise in the finished product price.
Distributors are the least optimistic. They say that it is highly unlikely that the competitive battle between traders will see any relaxation at the start of 2008. Therefore, at the moment, the stockists and service centers find it difficult to imagine any sudden, substantial upward movement in merchant bar prices.