In the past two weeks, the prices of futures products related to the black golden li industrial chain have continued to fall. Among them, the futures price of rebar has fallen by about 6.89%, while the futures prices of coking coal and coke in the upstream have fallen by 15.89% and 11.84% respectively. Generally speaking, the price decline of upstream futures products such as iron ore and coal was significantly greater than that of downstream rebar and hot-rolled coils. In addition, compared with the spot price, the price of steel futures contract is still in a state of discount, and it has lasted for nearly a month. At the same time, the far-month futures contract is also at a discount compared to the near-month contract, indicating that the market’s expectations for the forward price of steel are relatively pessimistic. The sluggish downstream demand is the main reason for the continuous decline in steel prices.
From the data point of view, last week (April 17-21, the same below) the apparent demand for rebar was 3.2145 million tons, a slight increase of 107,700 tons from the previous month; It has recovered, but it is not stable, falling with the decline of futures prices, and also negatively affected by a new round of heavy rainfall in the south. In terms of the real estate industry, although the sales area of commercial housing continued to improve year-on-year, indicators such as the newly started area of real estate and new projects are not optimistic. This shows that the current real estate market is basically in the stage of destocking, and the sales side has improved slightly, but there has been no significant increase in production and construction. The reason is that real estate companies are facing a shortage of funds, and their enthusiasm for new construction and construction is not high. Although there are relatively many infrastructure projects, the funding is still low.
However tight. Macro data at home and abroad indicate that the current demand recovery is slowing down. On the domestic front, the growth rate of the gross domestic product (GDP) rebounded more than expected. In the first quarter, the GDP grew by 4.5%, showing a strong recovery trend. However, from a structural point of view, the main factor supporting the current stage of economic recovery is the pull of the tertiary industry, while industrial production is relatively weak in supporting economic growth. Internationally, indicators such as crude oil and freight show pessimistic expectations for global economic growth. On April 23, the spot prices of Brent and WT (West Texas Intermediate crude oil) both fell, down 2.8% and 3.2% week-on-week, respectively, mainly due to weakening demand and the adjustment of supply and demand expectations at the end of the month. During the same period, the Baltic Dry The BDI continued to fall, down 4.6% week-on-week, reflecting that the foreign trade situation was still volatile and weak.
The reduction in the total supply side has slowed down the decline in steel prices. According to research by relevant institutions, the output of rebar last week was 2.9426 million tons, a decrease of 7.38% from the previous month. Among them, the output of long-process steel was 2.5878 million tons, a decrease of 40,300 tons from the previous month; the output of short-process steel was 354,800 tons, a decrease of 33,500 tons from the previous month. bigger. The reason lies in the decline in the profit per ton of steel, and the decline in capacity utilization caused by the maintenance of electric furnace or rolling mill equipment, production reduction, and production change. Among them, long- and short-process steel production profits continue to decline. The profit per ton of steel for long-process steel mills has dropped to -200 yuan, and the profit per ton of steel for short-process steel mills is also around -100 yuan. As the level of losses continues to increase, the enthusiasm of steel mills to reduce production is getting higher and higher. This is also reflected in relevant indicators (such as the decline in capacity utilization, the increase in equipment maintenance rate, etc.)
To sum up, the current weakness in steel demand will continue to suppress the prices of steel and other black futures varieties. However, in view of the fact that the output of steel products is basically in a high range, there is relatively little room for further increase, and the price of steel products will not continue to decline greatly. In the future, it is necessary to focus on the boosting effect of the improvement in real estate sales on indicators such as new construction area.
Post time: May-04-2023