SHFE Market Movement (2017-04-14）

According to SMM, prices of petroleum-based basic chemical raw materials such as styrene and propylene have risen sharply recently, significantly driving up the costs of engineering plastics for home appliances such as PP and ABS. Coupled with shrinking demand from the Middle East, air-conditioner manufacturers' willingness to stockpile and produce has weakened markedly, and softer demand from the home appliance sector has directly dragged down overall demand for enamelled wire.

[SMM Brass Billet Flash News] Affected by persistently high prices of recycled brass raw materials and tight availability of circulating supply in the market, brass billet sample enterprises saw weaker willingness to stockpile raw materials this week, with days of raw material inventories edging down to 4.35 days. Turnover of finished product inventories remained stable at 5.39 days, and overall inventory pressure across the industry was limited.

This week (March 20–March 26), the operating rate of machines in China’s enamelled wire industry pulled back 0.2 percentage points MoM to 88.73%. Affected by weakening home appliance demand and fluctuations in copper prices, new orders this week pulled back 11.19 percentage points MoM, downstream pick-up of goods slowed down, finished product inventories edged up to 7.47 days, and enterprises were generally concerned about the order outlook for April.