Spot Stainless Steel Prices Stabilise Temporarily

SHANGHAI, Feb 27 (SMM) - Spot #304 stainless steel prices rose somewhat last week. The 200-series inventories in Wuxi and Foshan markets increased last week. Many stainless steel mills shipped spots to the market, but the transactions were slack, and the overseas demand also remained poor. Social inventory of 300-series stainless steel in the Wuxi and Foshan markets dropped. On the supply side, a stainless steel mill in east China cut its shipments to the Wuxi market. Spots held by a mill in the south were mainly sources shipped from Indonesia. In terms of demand, most of the cold-rolled coil transactions were concentrated in traders. The demand for hot-rolled coils from the industrial sectors still existed. The overall inventory of 300-series stainless steel fell slowly. 300-series stainless steel social inventory may drop slightly with the stainless steel mills' shipment control. Stainless steel mills intended to raise the prices of 400-series stainless steel with the release of the bid price, but the high inventory continued to suppress the spot prices. The terminal demand cannot grow palpably in the short term as the construction of various infrastructure projects is in the initial stage. SMM predicts that in the short term, the spot prices of stainless steel may still run stably under the pressure of high inventory, and the social inventory may fall slowly.