[SMM HRC Daily Review] Bearish Factors Dominate, HRC Prices May Fluctuate Downward in the Short Term

Published: Dec 18, 2024 17:27

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【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.

Today, HRC futures fluctuated downward, closing at 3,450 in the afternoon. In the spot market, the trading atmosphere for HRC was moderately weak, with significant caution among downstream end-users and speculative demand nearly disappearing, leading to weak HRC transactions. On the cost side, coke prices are expected to decline further, and iron ore prices slightly weakened, resulting in unstable cost support for HRC. On the 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 stood at 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 HRC prices are likely to fluctuate downward in the short term.

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