Lumber Prices Slump With Rising Interest Rates - 31 mai 2022

Wood prices were a leading indicator of the supply-chain problems and inflation that followed pandemic lockdowns. Prices shot up in the summer of 2020 as cooped-up Americans remodeled en masse and demand for suburban houses soared. By last spring, lumber cost more than twice the prepandemic high. Now, two-by-four prices are flashing caution. Lumber futures for July delivery ended Friday at $695.10 per thousand board feet, down 52% from a high in early March. On-the-spot wood prices have plunged, too. Pricing service Random Lengths said Friday that its framing composite index, which tracks cash sales, fell about 12% last week to end at $794. That is down from $1,334 in March, just before the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2018. 

Canfor Corp. , one of the continent’s biggest lumber producers, said Thursday that it was extending reduced operating schedules at its sawmills in Western Canada and will implement two-week rotating downtimes this summer because lumber is stacking up in its yards. Canfor said its Canadian sawmills have been operating at about 80% of production capacity since late March. Besides home construction, lumber traders and analysts are eyeing the aisles of Home Depot (US.HD) and Lowe’s (US.LOW). They are looking for signs that consumers are shifting spending away from home-improvement projects to entertainment and vacations.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lumber-prices-slump-with-rising-interest-rates-11653835230