Industry News Markets
Lumber prices up over summer

Aug. 27, 2014, Toronto - Scotiabank's Commodity Price Index edged down by 0.3% month-over-month (m/m) in July, but the Forest Products Index advanced by 2.4% month-over-month in July and remains 5.0% higher than a year earlier.

Western Spruce-Pine-Fir 2x4 lumber prices have rallied back seasonally from US$324 per mfbm in June to US$351 in July and a lucrative US$367 in late August. U.S. housing starts climbed to 1.093 million units annualized in July, centred in multi-family dwellings.

U.S. homebuilder confidence has increased to a 7-month high, given a strengthening U.S. job market (employment gains have averaged a healthy 244,000 in the past six months) and cheaper mortgage costs. NBSK pulp prices stayed near-record highs of US$1,030 per tonne, but inched down to US$1,020-1,030 in August, with a 2-day increase to 27 days-of-supply in world bleached softwood kraft inventories and a surge in hardwood stocks to 46 days.

Read the full Scotiabank Commodity Price Index online at: http://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/0,,3112,00.html.

August 27, 2014  By Marketwired