Hot and cold rolled coil

Since the middle of July, after the early shock, hot and cold rolled coil market prices did not appear large fluctuations, the market of cold rolled steel pipe is still in the off-season, general trading, steel traders on the market generally cautious. Hot and cold rolling coil price is expected to be stable in the short term.

Recently, the Shanghai market cold and hot rolled coil prices are mixed, demand has not increased significantly, steel inventory generally increased, downstream end users are basically on demand to purchase, less stock. Market participants should focus on the factors affecting the market trend, mainly in the following aspects:
First, the production and marketing of the downstream industry is depressed. Recently, the production and sales of automobile and home appliance industries are sluggish. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), China’s auto output and sales volume in July reached 1.863 million and 1.864 million units, down 4.1% and 7.5% from the previous month and 15.5% and 11.9% year-on-year, respectively. In the home appliance industry, steel pipe suppliers are raising prices due to rising raw material prices. In the first half of this year, domestic color TV prices rose about 35 percent year on year, and washing machine prices rose about 8.8 percent year on year. Meanwhile, retail sales of small household appliances reached 25.08 billion yuan, down 8.6% year on year; Retail sales reached 11.11 million units, down 8.2 percent year on year. In the short term, the production and marketing situation of the automobile and home appliance industries is difficult to improve significantly. In particular, the problem of “chip shortage” continues to plague the car market, and many car enterprises have therefore reduced production. This will continue at least next year. In the short term, the automobile and home appliance industries are difficult to quickly get rid of the production and marketing difficulties, and then the demand for hot and rectangular hollow section is difficult to increase substantially.

Second, the price difference between long wood and plate is enlarged, which affects the distribution of production resources of steel enterprises. At present, the price difference of the domestic market plate and long material is gradually widening. On August 20, the price of hot rolled coil in Shanghai market is 5620 yuan/ton, the price of rebar is 5210 yuan/ton, the price of hot rolled coil is significantly higher than the price of rebar. The profit of steel enterprises in the production of sheet metal is obviously better than that of long metal, which leads to the tilt of production resources to sheet metal.

At the same time, into the second half of this year, the pressure to reduce the output of black iron steel pipe further increased. Many steel enterprises through the implementation of maintenance, active reduction of crude steel output, which has achieved certain results.