How is the recent trend of stainless steel prices?
Recently, stainless steel prices have shown a trend of rising first and then falling, with a weak and stable operation in the short term, lacking obvious unilateral driving. The following is a specific analysis:
According to the price monitoring of Sino-Sino, as of the end of May, the spot price of stainless steel was 12,271.4 yuan/ton, up 1.18% from 12,064.29 yuan/ton at the beginning of the month, but down 7.49% year-on-year. In May, the price of stainless steel rose first and then fell, and the price at the end of the month increased slightly compared with the beginning of the month.
From the supply and demand perspective, in terms of supply, the domestic output of stainless steel crude steel in May was 3.4899 million tons, a month-on-month decrease of 0.36% and a year-on-year increase of 5.76%. Due to production losses, there have been frequent rumors of production cuts at stainless steel plants recently, such as Tsingshan in Indonesia stopping production for 3 months and resuming production in August, and S Steel Plant in East China plans to stop production for 10-15 days for maintenance and is expected to affect 304 production by 20,000-30,000 tons, etc. However, although some steel plants have reduced production of 304, they have switched to 200 series, and the overall supply of stainless steel is still high. In terms of demand, the second quarter is the traditional off-season for stainless steel consumption. The real estate market, which is closely related to stainless steel demand, has slowly recovered. In April, the year-on-year growth of development investment, completed area and first-tier housing prices weakened. In addition, the export of stainless steel coils and their products faces obstacles such as tariffs, anti-dumping and new export regulations, and the overall demand for stainless steel is expected to have limited room for improvement.
From the inventory situation, stainless steel inventory rose slightly in May. By the end of the month, the total stainless steel inventory was 1.1177 million tons, up 0.42% from the beginning of the month. The slow digestion of inventory has suppressed prices.