In the year-end, consumer demand for the end of the year is weak, the market mainly shifts from factories to trade warehouses. Therefore, prices and transactions will slow down, especially in the context of financial, credit recovery issues. However, if the market has adjustments from major companies like Hoa Phat with construction steel and Hoa Sen with corrugated iron, there is likely to be significant changes because it is clear that expectations for recovery have never been greater in 2022.

Domestic steel market:

Prices continue to increase this week in the buying markets of South Korea and Taiwan, while the selling markets of Japan, the US, and the EU have also seen adjustments in prices. Both common and high-grade scrap have set new, highest prices in many months. Along with ongoing market transactions, increased imports have led to a slowdown in domestic production.

The domestic scrap market:

After a month of consecutive increases, domestic scrap has shown signs of decreasing. However, the adjustment has not been uniform and has not been deeply reduced, focusing mainly on some northern factories. Part of the decrease in scrap is due to decreasing prices in billet, but another part is due to many basic factories being fully stocked with accumulated quantities. However, increased imports of scrap have caused factories to be cautious with price adjustments due to fear of scrap returning in the coming period.

The exported steel scrap market:

Prices continue to increase with many options available for both IF and BF scrap. Despite the global market still suffering, especially after the price of DSS scrap fluctuated, the demand for steel scrap in Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, has increased. This has caused an increase in the price of scrap exported from Japan. The price of DSS scrap has also reached its highest level in six years due to increased demand from China and other countries.

The domestic steel scrap market:

Prices decreased at the beginning of the week and then stabilized at the end of the week. The price decrease is due to a slowdown in construction steel demand, causing the billet market to reset prices to a reasonable range. The decrease in billet has also led to a decrease in domestic scrap prices. However, after domestic scrap stabilized, combined with an increase in exported scrap prices and the stabilization of domestic scrap, the market appears to be stabilizing gradually.

The imported HRC market:

The futures price has been volatile, especially at the beginning and end of the week, affecting the offer price to some extent. However, confidence in the recovery of the steel market in early 2023 has helped stabilize prices. In addition, Formosa and Hoa Phat's increase in the list price for HRC for the December last week has also been a factor in preventing large fluctuations in imported prices.

The domestic HRC market:

After increasing prices in line with the increasing of market last week and especially due to the increasing adjustments made by Formosa and Hoa Phat, domestic prices faced considerable downward pressure this week. However, basic HRC traders decided to maintain prices in order to wait for new positive signals in the context that it is not easy to establish a new price milestone.

The construction steel market:

Hoa Phat has slightly increased the price of construction steel, both rebar and coil, and some other factories have followed suit. Steel consumption has also been significantly different from November and anticipation of Hoa Phat's next round of price increases has appeared due to Hoa Phat's increases still being lower than most other factories. If Hoa Phat increases prices next week, scrap and billet prices may fluctuate.

The pipe and box steel market:

Some factories have decreased prices, focusing mainly in the north. However, traders have adjusted prices more flexibly due to sluggish demand. Therefore, news of Hoa Sen's cut monthly and quarterly discounts in December and the quarter from December 25 is expected to create a new round of adjustments in the last week of December.

The corrugated iron market:

Unlike the increases in previous weeks, this week's corrugated iron market has not seen any factories increase prices, and basic traders have not seen significant changes. However, after the announcement of Hoa Sen's cut in discounts, there is a possibility of factories increasing prices next week. In addition, corrugated iron factories are making great efforts to export to compensate for difficulties in domestic consumption. .

Source: GiaThepton.com