HRC Futures Remain High amid Falling Inventory

SHANGHAI, Feb 20 (SMM) - HRC futures remained high last Friday and closed with gains of 0.98%. In terms of the spot market, the transactions in many markets weakened significantly. The terminal purchases on dips as needed and the speculative demand of traders was released. But the transactions were light last Friday amid the wait-and-see sentiment.

On the supply side, some steel mills in north-east China were overhauled, and thus the output of HRC decreased slightly from the previous week. On the demand side, transactions in east China, south China, and north China were active last week, and the social inventory surveyed by SMM declined 2.1% or 100,700 mt to 4.6954 million mt.