After two consecutive days of post-holiday steel prices, there has been a continuous decline this week, and the decline has exceeded the increase in the previous two days. In less than a week, steel prices have risen from a big rise to a big fall, what has the steel market experienced?
According to the monitoring data of Lange Steel Cloud Business Platform, on October 13, the average price of tertiary rebar (Φ25mm) in the top ten key cities in China was 5811 yuan / ton, down 70 yuan / ton from the previous day, and this week's "three consecutive declines" fell by 135 yuan / ton, a decline of 2.27%. Rebar futures fell sharply today, at one point falling below the 5300 yuan mark, with a maximum amplitude of nearly 300 yuan. On October 13, the main contract of rebar futures in the previous period fell sharply, closing at 5421 yuan / ton, down 267 yuan / ton, a decline of 4.69%; two days of cumulative decline of 387 yuan / ton, a decline of 6.66%.
Speaking of this round of decline, Wang Siya, senior analyst of Lange Steel Network, said that this is not unrelated to the weakening of production in the near term, and steel companies in many places resumed production this week, and the rise in output caused market concerns. Coupled with insufficient demand increments, stock crashes and the rush of profitable merchants in the early stage to cash out, the release of bearishness has accelerated, resulting in an accelerated decline in steel prices.
In September, affected by the "double control of energy consumption", Jiangsu, Guangxi and other places continued to upgrade production restrictions, and steel mills stopped production more. However, recently some steel mills in Guangxi have begun to resume work, and more than ten steel mills in Jiangsu, such as Lianxin, Yaxin, Xicheng, Xinsanzhou, Danyang, Gaoxin, Zhongtian and Nangang, have also resumed work. According to incomplete statistics, only 14 blast furnaces and 16 production lines in 450-2120 blast furnaces in Jiangsu have resumed production, of which some blast furnaces and production lines are not saturated.
However, it is reported that since yesterday evening, the power ration in Henan has been tightened, and a number of blast furnace and electric furnace enterprises have received notices of production restriction or suspension of production. At the same time, today the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on the staggered peak production of the steel industry in the 2021-2022 heating season in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and surrounding areas. Therefore, from the current overall point of view, the general environment of production restriction has not changed substantially.
On the demand side, it has not accelerated as expected, but has been bearish in real estate and other aspects recently. Recently, Beijing, Hangzhou, Nanjing and other places have seen a large number of land auctions, which has reduced the market's confidence in future demand. In addition, the latest economic data will be released this month, but from the current situation, the overall expectation is relatively less optimistic.
In terms of inventory, due to poor demand, the current steel social inventory has increased. According to the monitoring data of Lange Steel Cloud Business Platform, on October 8, the social inventory of steel in 29 key cities across the country was 11.947 million tons, up 415,000 tons from last week, an increase of 3.6%, and there was a rebound after the end of the "nine consecutive declines".
In terms of raw materials, the price of iron ore in the early stage was affected by the demand for replenishment after the eleventh long holiday, and the price rebounded slightly, but due to the continuous implementation of the domestic steel production reduction policy, the recent iron ore price has fallen. According to the monitoring data of Lange Steel Cloud Business Platform, on October 13, the price of Rizhao Hong Kong iron ore was 880 yuan / ton, down 20 yuan / ton from the previous day, a decline of 2.22%; two days of cumulative decline of 30 yuan / ton, a decline of 3.23%. But scrap and coke prices remain high. According to the monitoring data of Lange Steel Cloud Business Platform, on October 13, Tangshan scrap was 3590 yuan / ton; Tangshan coke price was 4160 yuan / ton. At present, raw material prices are still strong for steel price support.
Wang Siya said that at present, rebar futures are in a quantitative downward pattern, so the bottom is difficult to predict. If there is a bottoming situation now, it will usher in a new round of rebound, but if it falls again in the later stage, there will be a sharp decline. She believes that from the current overall situation, the steel market is still in the big rhythm of limited production, there is still room for bullish in the later stage, the main tone is still a shock trend, and the later stage needs to focus on the resumption of production on the supply side. (Lange Steel Press Center Peng Cuiting)