The market opened the week under immediate pressure with selling seeing the March’25 No.11 fall quickly back below 22c/lb within the first 30 minutes of trading. From here followed a brief period of consolidation around 21.84c/lb before a big push back toward 22c/lb was stalled out just shy of the mark. Over the next few hours gradual selling eroded the market back down through to the low of the day at 21.67c/lb. The afternoon saw a few concerted efforts to drive the market higher again, the second achieving the high point of the day at 22.16c/lb. Though into the final few hours of trading and much of the gain given was back again, closing the session down overall at 21.96c/lb. Traded volume was in the same ballpark as recent sessions with only 38k lots traded on the front month, and prices more broadly continue to track slowly lower since September’s rally.
The whites market began the week with strong selling, seeing prices tumble 10USD/mt within the first few hours. From here the Dec’24 No.5 futures recovered slightly with a blip of buying seeing prices recover toward 560USD/mt. The bulk of the remainder of the session was characterised by longer periods of gradual price erosion, interrupted by short bursts of more concerted buying, with the day’s high of 566.3USD/mt reached with a few hours to go. The day ended on a small high, rallying into the close to settle at 561USD/mt, albeit down 5USD/mt on the open. With the whites seeing relatively more weakness than the raws today the spot white premium contracted slightly back toward 84USD/mt and the No.5 more generally continuing to track sideways to low in the weeks since September’s rally.
