Source: Futures Daily
Recently,RebarThe main futures contract showed a trend of rising and falling. After more than two months of continuous accumulation, the total rebar inventory began to go out of storage last week, the supply and demand situation improved, and the price rose to a high level. However, as the market has not yet fully entered the peak consumption season, the terminal’s acceptance of high prices is not high, and rebar began to drop slightly. Therefore, in the later period, we need to focus on the performance of the “Golden Three Silver Four” traditional consumption peak seasons.
Last week, rebar began to enter the storage stage, which was the first time to go to storage after the Spring Festival this year. According to statistics, as of February 23, the total rebar inventory was 12.53 million tons, which was at a seasonally low level after the Spring Festival in the past seven years, only higher than the level in the same period in 2017. According to the author’s analysis, during the destocking period after the Spring Festival in 2012-2015, the price of rebar showed a downward trend. In the destocking stage after the Spring Festival in 2016-2021, the price of rebar will rise as a whole. In the destocking stage after the Spring Festival in 2022, the price of rebar will decline as a whole. Generally speaking, during the destocking stage after the Spring Festival, the price of rebar has no obvious fluctuation pattern. The price fluctuation mainly depends on downstream consumption and consumption expectations, and the elasticity of supply determines the price fluctuation range.
From the perspective of the market outlook, although the infrastructure is expected to continue to exert its strength, it will still take time for the real estate side to drive the consumption of rebar. At the beginning of this year, real estate sales picked up sharply. Considering that it will take a certain period of time from land acquisition to new construction, the area of land purchased dropped sharply in the second half of last year. The real estate start data in the first half of this year will still be poor, but start and construction are expected to improve in the second half of the year. In terms of high-frequency consumption, as of February 21, the resumption rate of 12,220 engineering projects across the country was 86.1%, an increase of 9.6 percentage points week-on-week, and a year-on-year increase of 5.7 percentage points in the lunar calendar; the labor service delivery rate was 83.9%, an increase of 15.7 percentage points week-on-week. Lunar calendar year-on-year increase of 2.8 percentage points. As of February 23, the weekly apparent consumption of rebar was 2.937 million tons, an increase of 14.9% over the same period in the lunar calendar last year and a 32% increase from the previous month. From a month-on-month perspective, as the resumption rate of construction sites further increases, the consumption of building materials will continue to increase month-on-month.
In addition, this year the country will continue to consolidate the results of reducing production, but scrap steel and low profits of steel mills will affect the release of rebar production. Specifically, in 2022, under the combined influence of poor terminal consumption and low profits of steel mills, the national crude steel output will drop by 2.1% year-on-year. In 2023, although the relevant departments have not yet clarified the crude steel reduction policy, they will continue to consolidate the results of steel production capacity reduction and production reduction. From this point of view, the supply side of rebar in the later period will still be disturbed by policies. As of February 23, the weekly output of rebar was 2.8217 million tons, down from the same period last year, and continued to rise week-on-week. After the Spring Festival, steel mills as a whole are continuing to resume production, and rebar production will further increase. However, due to the overall shortage of scrap steel resources and the low profits of steel mills, the recovery of production may be limited.
Judging from the disk, as of February 27, the spot profit of the rebar blast furnace is 124 yuan/ton, the disk profit is 10 yuan/ton, and the electric furnace steel profit is 35 yuan/ton. The theoretical price of rebar in Shanghai is 4260 yuan/ton, which is 447 yuan/ton higher than the average price of 3813 yuan/ton in 2007-2023. The spot profit of the blast furnace is moderate, the profit of the electric furnace and the plate is low, the rebar futures are slightly discounted, and the absolute price is at a historically high level. From the perspective of comprehensive steel mill profits, basis and absolute prices, the overall valuation of the rebar futures 2305 contract is slightly low, the overall drive is still upward, and the price is expected to maintain a strong oscillation.(Author unit: Zhongzhou Futures)
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