FOEX: Latest PIX Index Values with comments – March 29, 2011

US NBSKP – Shipments on pulp to the North American market were fairly weak in February, reflecting the declines seen in paper shipments. The PPPC data showed shipments of paper grades market pulp down by as much as 9.6% against February 2010. Supported by good demand elsewhere – and by the approaching high season for paper and maintenance downtime period for pulp – the US BSKP market has remained tight. Price increases have been announced separately by several major producers, typically by 30 USD/ton from April 1. If fully successful, the attempted hike would bring the gross contract price up to 1020 USD/ton. The data reported was again in a range between 960 and 990 USD, with 990 USD clearly the most common individual quote. Our PIX NBSKP US index moved up by 83 cents, or by 0.1%, and closed at 985.19 USD/ton.

US Newsprint – February was another very weak month for the North American newsprint. In addition to the softness of the domestic market, the export volumes were down and inventories moved up. The weather conditions and other logistics problems are reported to have delayed the export shipments causing most of the inventory hike. The US publishers’ inventories are rather elevated. The latest price data for the US Newsprint indexes included some slight changes from last week.  The PIX US Newsprint 30lb index moved up by 1 cent, or 0.0%, to 626.93 USD/ton, and the 27.7 lb index moved up by the same 1 cent, or 0.0%, to 669.74 USD/ton.

Read More on FOEX.fi