This slowdown has been ongoing for the past month as officials try not to repeat what happened in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics—"Bad Air". These games virtually affect all of the import business of raw fiber because Guangzhou is the leading city of China's economic development reform that started back in 1978. The city prides itself on having built a business community of thousands of large, medium, and small sized enterprises that offer more job opportunity and make the city a heavily populated area.
The shutdown of manufacturing means less packaging needed, so nationally the paper mills slow their pace for the next 30 days. "This now will start to affect U.S. West Coast prices as the intermediate high of $220 has been recorded for now per our sources in Long Beach," Edwards notes. He adds that "this undoubtedly will affect the domestic buyers when they start getting a few more calls from generators wanting to move tons now, so the closing of the gap that took place for the past couple of weeks might start to widen on the West Coast in the next few days as mill prices are posted to the public."
The Southeast U.S. might just be a market by itself, according to Edwards, who adds that "to stay on top of what is happening there, I believe it would be necessary to live there." The market continues to use all tons available plus a good supply of pulp. Rumors are out weekly about the possibility of mills taking down time, so their tons might be available. "As I am writing this, the rumor of the day is that IP is releasing tons to cool the market, but that is far from being confirmed. In the Midwest from Illinois East, one group of buyers is experiencing the lack of shipping containers where they are needed, but the domestic pricing still rose during the last half of October, so that does not seem to be affecting the marketing of the lower grades"
The office papers are trading on a generation/supply, Edwards explains, adding that their market is high enough that both buyers and sellers are not quibbling over $5 to $15 movement either way. The sales of No. 6 news is virtually off the books since the mills digest that in with mixed paper at a high rate, so it is likely to be removed from existence, he points out.
"All in all, as we start November and the official Holiday Season, and we now know who will be going to Washington, the market is apparently in good shape, slightly favoring the generation side for now," Edwards says.
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