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Lumber Prices Tick Up Slightly Even as Demand Remains Low
At this time of year, the historical trend would normally be for lumber prices to be rising. Usually by mid-April the building activity for housing is ramping up, and sales volumes of construction framing lumber are approaching their high for the year. This year, however, is proving to be quite the exception. The biggest reason…
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Lumber Prices Flatten as Demand Remains Weak
Ongoing harsh winter weather and ample supply of lumber inventories in the field served to keep prices stable. It seemed that only the sawmill downtime and curtailment announcements of recent weeks — and months — kept lumber prices from falling lower. The balancing act of keeping manufacturing volumes in line with demand was made even…
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US Housing Market January and Softwood Lumber Prices February: 2023
US housing starts and new home sales data has been released for January 2023, with the latest numbers showing an ongoing momentum of activity. In 2022 the US began building 1.55 million homes, just a -3% drop from full-year 2021. Single-family starts in 2022 totalled 1.01 million, down -10.6% from the previous year. Total housing…
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Random Length Lumber Futures Trading *repost*
Chicago Mercantile Exchange launched updated futures trading in August 2022 under the ticker LBR CME Group launched a new lumber futures contract on August 8, 2022. The new derivative is said to feature a more precise hedging acumen and is designed to be more accessible to producers. The new futures are now sized at 27,500…
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Reduced Manufacturing Volumes Push Lumber Prices Up
Despite somewhat soft demand, as many customers weren’t sure where prices were going so waited to buy, lumber prices popped up again in mid-February. This due mostly to ongoing capacity restrictions, especially in the important timber supply basket of British Columbia. As the spring building season fast approaches, end-users will not be able to wait…
