Even as, in advance of Labour Day, the North America construction framing dimension softwood lumber market was in the usual snoozy mode, the price of benchmark lumber commodity item Western S-P-F 2×4 crested higher than the same week last year. And landed quite a bit above the same time in 2024.
This nice even trend line over the course of two entire years provides a good stability for sawmills in Canada and the US to see where the market is and make their plans for the next upcoming new home building season in spring of 2027.
In that time, the high for this item was US$550 mfbm in mid-March 2025, and the low was $388 in October 2024.
A spread of $162 is a bit higher than historical over the course of a year, but is still much less volatile than the recent several years.
In essence: this development provides a baseline for industry to know the range of price high vs price low that will be likely going forward.
In the week ending August 28, 2026, the price of benchmark softwood lumber item Western Spruce-Pine-Fir 2×4 #2&Btr KD (RL) was US$475 mfbm. This was down -$5, or -1%, from the previous week when it was $480, said weekly forest products industry price guide newsletter Madison’s Lumber Reporter.
That week’s price was down -$30, or -6%, from one month ago when it was $505.
The latest trade salvo between the US and Canada become a hot topic of conversation in an otherwise slow late-summer week.
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KEY TAKE-AWAYS:
• Western-SPF players in the US were more interested in taking the symbolic last weeks of summer to vacation rather than sit at a desk.
• Trading activity unsurprisingly sputtered as distractions abounded ahead of the upcoming Labour Day weekend holiday.
• Prices of Western-SPF in Canada continued its sideways-to-down drift as summer holidays again took precedence over slow business.
• Scores of Eastern-SPF buyers staying out of the fray while a smaller cohort opportunistically sniped discounted orders where they could be found.
• Higher-priced Euro wood was arriving into a much softer market, so the next 30-45 days will be interesting.
• Southern Yellow Pine sawmills did a good job over the past few weeks cleaning up accumulations of certain items.
• Alternating hot and stormy weather in the US northeast was not expected to break until around mid-September, which kept construction activity there low.
Madison’s Benchmark Top-Six Softwood Lumber and Panel Prices: Monthly Averages
