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Author: kkosman

  • Softwood Lumber Prices Keep Rising as Suppliers Look Toward Late Summer

    Sawmills across North America looked toward the end of summer last week, as lumber prices continued to rise but sales volumes were unsteady. Lumber producers in the US and Canada considered this current market strength as temporary, and were already making plans for seasonal slow-downs when summer draws to a close.Softwood lumber producers consequently pushed…

  • Madison’s Weekly Softwood Lumber Price Update

    MADISON’S SOFTWOOD LUMBER MARKET WEEKLY COMMENT:Key comment: “Ravenous builders emerged as construction activity restarted, exposing the considerable lack of softwood lumber supply that has developed at all levels of the market.”Prices updated May 26, 2020 (CLICK TABLE TO ENLARGE)

  • Softwood Lumber Prices May 2020 & Canada April and Japan March Housing Starts

    The USA purchases approximately 65% of Canadian lumber production, while Canadian buyers account for about 10%, and those in Japan take 6%.However: US and Canadian customers purchase mostly standard grades (#2&Btr), while Japan buys almost exclusively premium or “appearance” grades (J-grade) which sells for quite a bit more than standard grade does.It’s true that North…

  • May Long Weekend in Canada Does Nothing to Slow Lumber Demand

    A lot of regular life activities remain unknown as various jurisdictions “open up” from the Covid19 isolation and quarantine. Regardless, most North American construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices jumped once again last week on both continued healthy demand and uncertainty with supply.Producers of Western Spruce-Pine-Fir commodities in the United States said bread and butter…

  • Softwood Lumber Prices May 2020 & US Housing Starts: April 2020

    Residential housing starts in the US slumped -30% from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 891,000, the lowest level since 2015, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. Data for March was revised up to show homebuilding declining to a pace of 1.276 million units instead of dropping to 1.216 million units as…