By Madison's Lumber Reporter
A couple of weeks ago it was panel (OSB and plywood) prices that saw spectacular rebounds; this week, Douglas fir green 2×4 prices recovered back to one-month-ago levels. A strong undercurrent of sales activity allowed U.S. sawmills to keep most of their prices flat from last week as many buyers couldn’t avoid coming back to the table repeatedly to keep their inventories from bleeding dry.
Customers were looking to other solid wood commodities besides benchmark Western Spruce-Pine-Fir KD 2×4 #2&Btr for their home building needs, thus the price of specialty construction framing dimension softwood lumber item Douglas fir green 2×4 #2&Btr surged this week +$25, or more than +6%, to U.S. $420 from U.S. $395 mfbm last week (net FOB sawmill; cash price, or “print”). Madison’s Lumber Reporter suggests that buyers are weighing the ratio of recent price increases for “the usual house construction suspects,” and decided to cast their queries wider. A sudden spurt of demand for this one item would be enough for manufacturers to be able to raise their price quotes by a healthy degree.
Remaining flat after recent climbs, the price of benchmark lumber commodity Western Spruce-Pine-Fir KD 2×4 #2&Btr stayed flat last week at U.S. $396 mfbm (net FOB sawmill; cash price, or “print”). Last week’s price is +$28, or +8%, more than it was one month ago. Compared to one year ago, when prices were at the beginning of a terrible slide, this price is up +74% or +23%.
A couple of weeks ago it was panel (OSB and plywood) prices that saw spectacular rebounds; this week, Douglas fir green 2×4 prices recovered back to one-month-ago levels. A strong undercurrent of sales activity allowed U.S. sawmills to keep most of their prices flat from last week as many buyers couldn’t avoid coming back to the table repeatedly to keep their inventories from bleeding dry.
Customers were looking to other solid wood commodities besides benchmark Western Spruce-Pine-Fir KD 2×4 #2&Btr for their home building needs, thus the price of specialty construction framing dimension softwood lumber item Douglas fir green 2×4 #2&Btr surged this week +$25, or more than +6%, to U.S. $420 from U.S. $395 mfbm last week (net FOB sawmill; cash price, or “print”). Madison’s Lumber Reporter suggests that buyers are weighing the ratio of recent price increases for “the usual house construction suspects,” and decided to cast their queries wider. A sudden spurt of demand for this one item would be enough for manufacturers to be able to raise their price quotes by a healthy degree.
Remaining flat after recent climbs, the price of benchmark lumber commodity Western Spruce-Pine-Fir KD 2×4 #2&Btr stayed flat last week at U.S. $396 mfbm (net FOB sawmill; cash price, or “print”). Last week’s price is +$28, or +8%, more than it was one month ago. Compared to one year ago, when prices were at the beginning of a terrible slide, this price is up +74% or +23%.
