Futures snail prices continue to rise Spot prices rose slightly

Just over half a month away from the Lunar New Year of the Tiger, construction units in many parts of the country have begun to return to their hometowns for the New Year, and the "off-season" of construction steel demand has gradually arrived. However, the recent rebar futures price has been unusual, like a wild horse soaring, less than half a month has risen by more than 300 yuan.

On January 13, the main contract of rebar futures in the previous period rose sharply, closing at 4633 yuan / ton, up 32 yuan / ton, an increase of 0.7%, during which it once broke through the 4700 yuan mark; compared with 4315 yuan / ton on December 31, 2021, the cumulative increase was 318 yuan / ton, an increase of 7.37%.

Although the spot price of rebar is relatively stable compared with the futures trend, but there has also been a slight increase, Lange Steel Cloud Business Platform monitoring data show that on January 13, the average price of tertiary rebar (Φ25mm) in the top ten key cities in China was 4743 yuan / ton, up 16 yuan / ton from the previous day; compared with 4713 yuan / ton on December 31, 2021, up 30 yuan / ton.

For this round of rapid rise in rebar futures prices, the market mentality has also changed significantly. Wang Siya, a senior analyst at Lange Steel Network, said that from the current structure of winter storage of traders, the overall "winter storage" inventory is low, and the mentality is divergent; some traders have rushed to enter the market since last week, and some have stepped on the air due to panic. Some steel traders said that now that they have goods in their hands, even if there is a loss after a year, it is bearable, and the most feared thing is that there is no goods in their hands, and the price of steel has risen sharply.

There have also been changes in steel mills. With the reduction of electric furnace factories due to losses, the increase in production of blast furnace enterprises is less than expected, resulting in a slower overall output rise; and recently some traders are eager to enter the market, so that the attitude of steel mills from worrying about excessive inventory pressure to strong, resulting in high costs of "winter storage".

At the same time, the superimposed recent good news continues, and the price of the snail in the stimulus period continues to rise. A few days ago, the latest economic data was released, of which the social finance and M2 data were slightly better than expected, and the inflation pressure was also alleviated to a certain extent. According to relevant data, China's new RMB loans in December were 1,130 billion yuan, expected to be 1,250 billion yuan, the previous value was 1,270 billion yuan; the scale of social financing increased by 2,370 billion yuan, estimated at 2,400.8 billion yuan, the previous value was 2,614.1 billion yuan; the balance of M2 was 238.29 trillion yuan, an increase of 9% year-on-year, estimated at 8.6%, and the previous value was 8.5%. China's PPI rose 10.3% year-on-year in December 2021, expected 10.8%, previously 12.9%; December CPI rose 1.5% year-on-year, expected 1.7%, previous value 2.3%.

In addition, the prices of raw fuels such as coke, iron ore and scrap steel continued to rise, forming a strong support for steel prices. According to the data of Lange Steel Cloud Business Platform, the current three rounds of tangshan coke prices have risen and landed, with a cumulative increase of 500 yuan / ton, an increase of 19.53%; on January 13, the price of iron ore in Rizhao Port was 845 yuan / ton, compared with the previous low of 575 yuan / ton on November 18, 2021, an increase of 270 yuan / ton, an increase of nearly 50%; on January 13, the tangshan scrap price was 3360 yuan / ton, compared with the previous low point of 2840 yuan / ton on November 16, 2021. It rose by 520 yuan / ton, an increase of 18.31%.

Wang Siya said that from the current speed and height of the price of snails, the short-term will show a shock trend, and it is not ruled out that it is possible to continue to explore the rise. In the later period, with the consumption of the good, the disk surface is expected to decline, which will drive the price of finished materials downward. Wang Siya believes that at present, it is necessary to pay attention to the digestion of good news, and in the later stage, we need to pay attention to the production limitation of the Winter Olympics and the overall incremental cycle of the supply side. (Lange Steel Press Center Peng Cuiting)