SHANGHAI, Feb 6 (SMM) - Spot prices of #304 stainless steel fluctuated with some downward potential last week. On the supply side, a stainless steel mill in east China shipped a large number of goods to the market. On the demand side, most processing companies have restocked enough raw materials before the CNY holiday. And they maintained low operating rates last week since their orders did not grow as expected. It will take some time for the terminal demand to pick up. The short-term mismatch of supply and demand has led to a significant accumulation of social inventories. The prices of high-grade NPI rose somewhat, and NPI was traded intensively last week. Stainless steel mills had to offer high purchase prices of raw materials, but the NPI prices also bore pressure from the slumping SS contract prices, which forced the NPI sellers to lower their quotes. It is expected that NPI prices will remain stable in the short term. Prices of high-carbon ferrochrome also grew. The retail prices continued apace, but the downstream demand did not fully recover. The market players were more cautious about purchasing high-priced goods. Ferrochrome prices were still strongly supported by chrome ore prices even though the downstream demand did not boom as expected. SMM presumes that the ferrochrome prices may run steadily in the short term. To sum up, spot prices of stainless steel did not grow as expected last week, but the cost support remained firm. SMM believes that the prices of stainless steel will fall slightly this week amid growing inventory.