How to focus on steel pipe market

China’s economic data in the first quarter were better than expected, with positive factors on the rise, especially the performance of industrial added value and real estate investment. China’s GDP totaled 2.1343.3 trillion yuan in the first quarter, up 6.4 percent year on year, better than the 6.2 percent widely expected, according to data released by the national bureau of statistics. Industrial production of rectangular hollow section picked up markedly. In march, industrial added value increased by 8.5% year on year, an increase of 3.2 percentage points over the January-February growth rate, which was the highest level since August 2014. Real estate investment in the first three months of this year was 238.03 billion yuan, up 11.8% year on year, 0.2 percentage points faster than that in the first two months of this year. Investment in fixed assets was 1,0187.1 billion yuan, up 6.3% year on year, 0.2 percentage points faster than January-February, and investment in infrastructure was up 4.4% year on year, 0.1 percentage point higher than January-February. Domestic steel market prices last week appeared a small adjustment trend, the main reason is the early price continued to rise slightly, steel pipe suppliers have the demands for shipments, the second is the blast furnace operating rate, which continued to pick up. From the recent market, the downstream performance is better than expected and the market inventory continues to decline; real estate investment and industrial added value are outstanding performance.

Although the growth rate of infrastructure investment is not as good as expected, it will continue to pick up in the second quarter.The increase of demand will be the main factor affecting the domestic steel market in the near future. After the short-term market price adjustment, it is expected that the steel market of square steel pipe will show a trend of first suppressing and then rising, and strong oscillation in this week.Focus on crude steel output of key enterprises.

Later market focus: from the spot fundamentals, the overall supply and demand relationship has not changed significantly, still in a state of high supply and relatively high demand, the current overall blast furnace operating rate is at a high level, although there is a policy of environmental protection production limit, but also should pay attention to the specific implementation.The downstream replenishment shows the characteristics of stages, the high level is cautious, the demand is still the mainstream operation mode, and the speculative demand is difficult to appear obvious action. Social and industrial stocks continue to decline, but the rate of decline has slowed down, and the margin of supply and demand has gradually changed. At present, the main factor influencing the fluctuation of spot price is the change of futures steel market. Futures steel market of round steel pipe has been in a strong state of pulling up in the early stage.