Category: Weekly Softwood Lumber Blog

The US Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported March 3 US and Canadian rail traffic volumes for February 2021. US railroads originated 824,636 carloads in February, down -11%, or 102,972 carloads, from February 2020. US railroads also originated 1,015,995 containers and trailers in February, up +2%, or 18,184 units, from the same month last year.Total…

New-home purchases account for about 10% of the market and are calculated when contracts are signed. They are considered a timely barometer of the current real estate market. At a very unusual time of year, not when folks normally want to be preparing to move, sales of new single-family houses in the US for January…

Winter weather still grips most of the continent and this is not the time of year when real estate activity in Canada and the US is usually strong, so if the data is showing such a high level of interest now it is only reasonable to assume that — come spring — home buying will…

For full-year 2020, the softwood lumber production volumes and sawmill capacity utilization rates in Canada dropped by a large degree compared to the previous year, while that in the United States remained much more stable. This latest data is very interesting because 2019 was not a great year for US housing starts and home building,…

Now reaching levels never seen before, in the week ending February 26, 2021, the price of benchmark softwood lumber commodity item Western S-P-F KD 2×4 #2&Btr rose another +$28, or +3%, to US$1,040 mfbm, from $1,012 the previous week. Last week’s price is +$42, or +4%, more than one month ago when it was $998.Compared…