【Bearish Factors Dominate, Short-Term HRC Prices May Fluctuate Downward】 Today, HRC futures fluctuated downward, closing at 3,450 in the afternoon. In the spot market, trading sentiment for HRC was moderately weak, with downstream end-users adopting a wait-and-see attitude and speculative demand nearly disappearing, leading to weak HRC transactions. Cost side, coke prices are expected to decline further, and iron ore prices slightly weakened, resulting in unstable cost support for HRC. Inventory side, HRC social inventory in major northern cities has shown a significant buildup, putting pressure on HRC prices. Additionally, according to the SMM survey, the blast furnace capacity utilisation rate at steel mills this week was 87.01%, down 0.56 percentage points WoW. The daily average pig iron production of sample steel mills was 2.3476 million mt, down 15,000 mt WoW, with pig iron production continuing to decline. In summary, bearish factors dominate the market, and short-term HRC prices may fluctuate downward.