Since mid-July, the spot prices of thread and iron ore have strengthened, and the main futures price of rebar has risen to 4 158 yuan/ton at the highest, with the cumulative increase at the low level exceeding 570 yuan/ton, and the cumulative increase in spot prices in East China has also exceeded 400 yuan/ton. So today, Bian Xiao is here to sort out the relevant knowledge of steel for everyone. Let's have a look!
What caused the steel price to strengthen in the off-season?
Tu Huawei, a researcher in the black department of Baocheng Futures, told reporters that the strength of drive threads and iron ore stems from three factors. The first is the switching of internal and external macro atmosphere. The Fed's interest rate hike in July was in line with market expectations, and inflation also ushered in a high decline. Concerns about real estate have eased. Coupled with the strong export in July, the domestic economy is expected to improve, and the macro mood of the market has improved, driving the collective upward trend of domestic commodities. One is that the supply contraction has brought about the fundamental improvement of the steel market, especially the construction steel. The weekly output of rebar dropped to 2,302,900 tons at the initiative of steel mills, setting a new record low. In the off-season, threads were greatly exhausted under low supply, boosting the ferrous metal market. Finally, the profit of steel products has improved, the inventory of raw materials in the factory is low, and the expected resumption of production of steel mills has driven the price of raw materials to strengthen.
Since the beginning of this year, the overall trend of the whole black futures has experienced a trend of rising first and then falling, and gradually showed signs of moving towards an "N" shape. The finished product is far weaker than the raw material. The biggest feature of this year is that the demand continues to be weak, and the epidemic situation is repeatedly superimposed with unstable factors such as political situation and economic pressure, which makes the table demand almost lose its seasonal fluctuation this year and run smoothly under the demand of the same period; The strongest raw material is iron ore, which is mainly supported by the shortage of supply and the continuous release of inventory pressure. "Last week, the overall price of black futures remained volatile, with little fluctuation. With the recovery of profitability of steel mills, the resumption of production of steel mills continues, but the mentality of traders is generally still weak. Even with the rebound of steel prices in the early stage, there is a certain fear of heights. On the contrary, the transaction situation in the building materials market is weaker than the previous week, the spot price is relatively inferior to the futures performance, and the steel base is weaker. " Qiu, a researcher in haitong futures's Black Studies Department, said.
What are the characteristics of the black industrial chain?
"The profit has been obviously repaired, but the profit difference of snails continues to weaken." Qiu said that in July, the overall profits of steel enterprises suffered an unprecedented impact. According to the statistics of the Steel Federation, the profit rate of 247 steel enterprises reached a record low of 9.96% at the end of July. However, with the decline of raw material prices and the recovery led by steel after the oversold and rebound of the whole black goods, the profit level of steel enterprises has also been quickly repaired, the profit situation of steel enterprises has stabilized and rebounded, and the recovery expectation has continued to strengthen. This week, the profit rate of 247 steel enterprises rebounded to 54.55%, only. However, with the continuous upside down of snail price difference, this year's snail profit difference fell to a new low, or even an absolute low in the same period, which led to the recovery of snail production less than rebar. This week, coil factories and warehouses also experienced a small accumulation phenomenon.
It is worth noting that the overall growth rate difference between production and sales continues to be weak, and the inventory pressure has been greatly eased. In July, against the background of global economic recession, the prosperity of manufacturing industry was hit again. After returning to the threshold, the sub-indicators also declined in an all-round way, but the gap between supply and demand of PMI narrowed from 2.4% to 1.3%, indicating that the supply and demand pattern of manufacturing industry did not continue to deteriorate. Judging from the high-frequency performance, although the current apparent consumption and transaction still failed to break through the low range of the same period, the year-on-year gap narrowed compared with the previous period, and local demand showed signs of marginal recovery. For example, the apparent consumption of rebar in the northern region is basically the same as that in the same period of last year, and the apparent consumption of hot coils in East China has maintained a positive growth year-on-year. "Supported by the strong contraction of supply and the slight recovery of ground demand, rebar inventory has been continuously stocked for 8 weeks, falling to the lowest level in the same period of nearly 4 years. With the continuous weakening of the growth gap between supply and demand, the inventory pressure is basically released, and the support for the rebound of steel prices is gradually strengthened. " Qiu said to him.
Tu Huawei also told reporters that the current off-season thread price has increased greatly, which has better realized the above benefits, but the thread supply and demand pattern has not substantially improved. After the profit improved, the construction steel mills actively resumed production. The weekly output of the thinnest thread increased by 72,900 tons from the previous month, which was a significant increase for three consecutive weeks, and the decline in inventory continued to narrow, indicating that the marginal benefit of low supply was weakened. In the near future, it is necessary to pay attention to the disturbance of power shortage on its output.
At the same time, this round of steel prices went up, and no demand cooperated. At present, the demand for thread is still weak. Last week, the demand for watches in Zhou Du decreased by 225,500 tons, approaching the previous low; However, terminal procurement showed a high decline. Last Sunday, the average transaction volume was only148,500 tons, down 7.48% from the previous month and falling for two consecutive weeks. At present, the high-frequency demand index is still at a low level in the same period of recent years, indicating that the off-season characteristics of threads are still there, and the weak demand is easy to bear the steel price. What is relatively positive is the market's expectation for the improvement of demand in the peak season, but the improvement of real estate steel is also difficult to be optimistic under the downward background.
"Multi-factor vibration drove steel prices to strengthen in the off-season, but after the profit improved, steel mills actively resumed production, supply picked up as scheduled, and demand performance was relatively weak. The pattern of thread supply and demand has not improved substantially, and the upward momentum of high steel prices is not strong. Relatively favorable is that the inventory and supply are at a low level, giving steel price support. Under the pattern of weak supply and demand, steel prices are expected to fluctuate weakly, and the fundamentals of the steel market need to be improved in the future, otherwise steel prices will remain under pressure again. "
Can "Golden September and Silver 10" stimulate the demand in the market outlook?
Recently, downstream steel mills have accepted the price increase after coke enterprises have repeatedly raised prices. The reporter learned in the interview that the price increase was affected by many factors. First, the demand for downstream finished products has stabilized, steel prices have rebounded, and the profits of steel mills have gradually recovered, providing a basis for accepting price increases; Second, the utilization rate of blast furnace capacity is improved, and at the same time, its own coke inventory is insufficient, which has the conditions for coke price to rise under the condition of high demand and low inventory; Third, coke enterprises are generally in a state of loss, which inhibits the release of coke oven capacity, and the supply of coke is somewhat insufficient, further consolidating the foundation for the upward price of coke; Finally, under the expectation of price increase, speculative demand entered the market, and traders increased the number of ports, which aggravated the shortage of coke supply and demand.
"At present, the supply and demand of coke is recovering. Last week, the operating rate of sample coke ovens increased by 4% to 68.6%, and the average daily coke output increased by 5.2 to 665,438+0.9 million tons. The utilization rate of blast furnace capacity in downstream steel mills increased by 1.62% to 8 1.22%, and the average daily output of hot metal increased by 4.36 to 2186,700 tons. The high temperature season in the south has gradually passed, and the superimposed macro policies have gradually exerted their strength. The demand for finished products is slowly recovering, and the futures market is also oscillating to reflect this phenomenon. " Du Peng, a coal tar researcher at Zhonghui Futures, said.
Du Peng believes that "Golden September and Silver 10" is the traditional peak demand season for finished products. Although the performance of real estate is relatively weak, there are related large-scale infrastructure projects, which weaken the impact of real estate on the demand for building materials, and ultimately the demand for building materials will not be too weak. On the other hand, the supply side continues to emphasize that the output of crude steel is reduced to 50 million tons, and the reduction of supply has also eased the contradiction between supply and demand of finished products. Therefore, when the building materials market is on the rise, the coke market can still be expected.
In addition, the reporter found that the supply and demand pattern of iron ore is weakening, which is directly reflected in the continuous increase of iron ore inventory. The latest iron ore inventory of Port 45 is138861600t, which is an increase of1821800t from the previous month, and the growth rate is still remarkable.
At this stage, steel mills continue to resume production after the profit improves, and the end consumption of ore continues to rise. The average daily output of molten iron and the average daily consumption of imported ore of 247 sample steel mills in TISCO have increased by 43,600 tons and 36,800 tons respectively, which have been increased for two consecutive weeks, but the overall increase is limited, which is still at a low level during the year and the same period, and the improvement of ore demand is limited. In addition, the profits of steel mills are also shrinking after the recent rise in raw material prices, and the expectation of resumption of production is weakened. In addition, steel mills often use low inventory production strategy, and the margin of favorable effect on demand side is weakening, so it is necessary to guard against the influence of reducing crude steel policy.
It is understood that the high shipments of miners have declined, but the decline is not large. On the contrary, the domestic arrival volume continues to rise and reach a high level, and the subsequent shipments of miners will still increase seasonally, and the supply of superimposed ore will resume, and the supply of ore will increase.
Tu Huawei believes that the recovery of market sentiment and the resumption of production of steel mills have supported the high operation of ore prices. However, at present, the improvement of domestic ore terminal demand is limited, the recovery of ore price has better fulfilled the expectation of resumption of production, and the positive effect of demand is not strong. On the contrary, the supply of ore is picking up, with a significant increase in the future. The fundamentals of ore will still weaken, and the upward momentum of ore price is not strong, so it is not suitable to chase more at a high level in operation.
Qiu believes that the logic of the black market outlook still maintains the overall view that "the macro is above the industry". The persistence and height of the black rebound will depend on the recovery of domestic demand, but the staged rhythm will be adjusted by the supply-side production process. At present, there are still high inflation and downward macroeconomic pressure in China. The the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee meeting emphasized that "wide credit" is still the focus of efforts, and the implementation of relevant measures to stabilize growth will be the key driving force for the recovery of domestic demand. On the supply side, with the recovery of steel mills' profits and profitability, the supply-driven margin is stronger, but the pattern of low raw material inventory has not changed obviously. The rebound of raw material inventory is limited, and the supply of scrap steel is still at a low level, which makes the rebar output of short-process electric furnace enterprises rebound less than that of long-process enterprises in the near future. Therefore, the recovery of steel enterprises' profits may or may have a certain offsetting effect on the stimulation of supply, and the profit recovery is difficult to sustain.
From a global perspective, there is still a supply ceiling and space for reducing crude steel production throughout the year, and some areas are also limited in electricity or air pollution prevention and control measures, which will also play a certain role in inhibiting large-scale resumption of production and the recovery rate of capacity utilization. "The low supply and demand has basically passed, the inventory pressure has been gradually released, and the steel price pressure has dropped below neutral. In the context of low steel inventory pressure, with the implementation of the easing policy of consumer demand, the coordinated recovery of supply and demand in the later period will still be a positive for the steel industry as a whole, so the overall performance of steel prices in the past 1 to 2 months will be optimistic. " Qiu said to him.