China is mulling a 2.5% cut in steel output for this year. This is in line with my own view of sliding underlying demand anyway.
The seasonal steel build has pulled up at around 2022 levels as order books are soft. Goldman:
Based on the mills’ feedback, the forward orderbooks of mills were mostly up MoM in March, drive by seasonality. Yet thestrength is softer than past for most producers. On a relative basis, demand in steel section and coastal region is moreresilient, while it remained soft in other regions. With higher steel price, unit profit improved marginally based on thefeedback, or Rmb100-200/t on average, versus 0-100/t a month ago.
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
