OCTOBER 2020
Lumber Prices Continue to Freefall
John Greene, Forest2Market
October 22, 2020
Last week, southern yellow pine (SYP) lumber prices continued a precipitous drop for the fifth week in a row, marking the single largest weekly change—in both dollars and as a percentage—of 2020. Forest2Market’s composite SYP lumber price for the week ending October 16 (week 42) was $569/MBF, a 17.5% decrease (and $121 drop) from the previous week’s price of $690/MBF. Other price trends observed throughout what has become the most chaotic year in recent history include:
- 1Q2020 Average Price: $360/MBF
- 2Q2020 Average Price: $456/MBF
- 3Q2020 Average Price: $761/MBF
- YTD Average Price: $527/MBF
Data and commentary from our British Columbia-based business partner,
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Madison’s Lumber Reporter, details a similar scenario for benchmark dimension softwood lumber products in western regions. While prices for these products surged in tandem with SYP, there are signs that demand is slowing and prices are flattening.
Madison’s recently wrote that “Prices continued to crash down in the Eastern S-P-F market last week. A large contingent of buyers participated, but the focus was on Less-Than-Truckload orders from the distribution network at wildly varying – but resoundingly lower – numbers. Overall sales volumes were strong but individual orders remained small as customers refused to take long positions in a falling market. Prompt wood became more common with each passing day as sawmills began to run into order files on a number of items, while production of bread and butter items were booked at around two weeks.”