Normal Seasonal Slowdown for Lumber Industry

Even while actual prices remained flat, there was a general sense of the usual seasonal slowdown coming for sawmills and the lumber industry. This is because the order files at producers have shrunk from a month to barely two weeks. Expectations are, that as construction activity drops off during the winter months, lumber demand will […]

Lumber Prices and Market Update: Nov 2022

The latest North American construction framing dimension softwood lumber prices and market commentary, by Madison’s Lumber Reporter for the end of November 2022 Check back with the Madison’s Lumber Reporter website madisonsreport.com often for the latest updates for the latest developments and updates. In the week ending November 25, 2022, the price of WSPF 2×4 […]

Good Supply-Demand Balance Keeps Lumber Prices Flat

In mid-November the annual North American Wholesale Lumbermen’s Association gathering took many traders away from their desks to hob-nob with their colleagues, often determining between themselves the condition for lumber sales to the end of the year. As such, sales were slow but somewhat consistent, and prices remained steady. True winter weather came on in […]

US Home Sales Sept, Lumber Prices Oct: 2022

After a pop the previous month, sales of new US single-family homes dropped again in September. There were 603,000 new single-family homes sold last month, which is down -10.9% from the downwardly revised August rate of 677,000 and is a -17.6% drop compared to September 2021 when it was 732,000. Only 6,000 new homes sold […]

North America Softwood Lumber Market Year-End Update: 2022

As the forest products industry matures into this post-Covid landscape, and the new realities of macroeconomic conditions become more clear, a better picture of cyclical lumber price trends is forming. In the past, solid wood manufacturers were able to rely on a relatively stable seasonal cycle; the beginning of slowdown after Labour Day, with lumber […]

Firmer Lumber Prices on Lowered Inventories

The beginning of November brought a slight firming up for lumber prices, due to recent sawmill curtailments — especially in British Columbia — and ongoing reasonable sales volumes. Customers found inventories in the field quite scarce thus had to come back to producers for their purchases. As the usual seasonal slowdown ihttps://madisonsreport.com/s upon us, and […]

US Housing Starts Sept, Lumber Prices Oct: 2022

Go to the websitehttps://madisonsreport.com/subscribe/to get a sample of the full 500 individual lumber and panel commodity prices for that week, as well as the market commentary explaining why the prices are changing. Total housing starts in the US for September 2022 fell -8.1% to 1.439 million units compared to the 1.566 million units reported for […]

Lumber Prices and Market Update: Oct 2022 [video]

Staying even from the previous week, in the week ending October 28, 2022, the price of benchmark softwood lumber item Western Spruce-Pine-Fir 2×4 #2&Btr KD (RL) was again US$480 mfbm, said weekly forest products industry price guide newsletter Madison’s Lumber Reporter. This is down by -$44, or -8%, from one month ago when it was US$524 mfbm. […]

Lumber Prices Flat on Significant Production Curtailments

As October drew to a close, significant production curtailments at several large British Columbia lumber producers helped keep softwood lumber prices flat. Most of these operators cited high log costs vs lower lumber prices as the reason for taking this downtime. Meanwhile, it seemed that Weyerhaueser and the union came to an agreement, so the […]

Madison’s Lumber Prices Update – Sneak Peak

An early view of what Madison’s Lumber Reporter subscribers will see tonight when the 500 individual softwood lumber and panel commodity prices are updated in our dashboard: This small bump up in benchmark Western S-P-F KD 2×4 and 2×6 #2&Btr during a time of year when construction and building is usually slowing down — thus […]