3/9/2007
According to today's Toronto Star, "the U.S. lumber industry yesterday urged their government to ensure Canadian provinces respect a pact on softwood lumber trade, just months after the two countries heralded the deal to end a long-running dispute. The Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, whose members collected $500 million (U.S.) under last year's U.S.-Canada agreement, said it still supports the deal, but wants Washington to push Canada to comply fully.U.S. trade officials have complained Canadians are sidestepping some provisions of the deal signed last September. Canada has denied lumber policies or forest management violate the deal."
3/13/2007
Sub-Prime Mortgages Affect Lumber Market
According to an article by K. Plume, "The crisis in the subprime mortgage sector is threatening to exert more pressure on slumping Chicago Mercantile Exchange lumber futures, which analysts said will drift lower as long as the U.S. housing market stays slow. CME lumber futures on Friday were down nearly 30 percent from a year ago and almost 50 percent since their peak in mid-2004 when U.S. housing starts were humming along at a pace of about 2 million units per year. By January 2007 starts had faded to an annual pace of 1.4 million units, the lowest since August 1997, according to the U.S. Commerce Department."
3/27/2007
Canadian Wholesale Revenues Fall in January
In spite of the U.S. housing sector, Canadian building materials wholesale increased. According to Modern Distribution Managment: " Following a strong end to 2006, wholesalers began the year on a subdued note, as weaker deliveries of automotive products and personal and household goods pushed overall sales lower. Wholesale sales declined 0.5% in January to $42.7 billion, reversing some of the 2.7% gain made in December. Significant drops in the automotive products (-4.6%) and personal and household goods (-4.5%) sectors were behind all of decline in January. Both of these sectors had posted substantial gains in December. The remaining five wholesale sectors, representing 67% of overall sales, all registered increases in January, led by the building materials and machinery and electronic equipment sectors Building Materials Wholesalers of building materials made a strong start to the year, up 3.3% to $6.3 billion. All three trade groups advanced, with the strongest growth coming from the lumber and millwork and building supplies trade groups. January's rise in lumber sales (+9.9%) was the highest monthly increase in over three years for this trade group, and also marked the fifth increase in six months. However, the recent increases come after a series of significant declines which had seen lumber sales fall by some 20% in the first half of 2006. Much of this lumber is exported and exports have also picked up somewhat of late after hitting a three and a half year low in November 2006."
3/28/2007
Japanese lumber & plywood markets were up in 2006 from 2005.
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