As the global economic engine slows, weaker demand for steel has weighed on the exchange traded fund that track global steel producers.
The Market Vectors Steel ETF (NYSEArca: SLX) dropped 6.2% over the past week. The fund is down 18.6% over the past three months.
China Steel Corp, the country’s only integrated steel producer, cut its domestic steel prices for June by an average 2.08% after there consecutive periods of increases for January, February and March shipments, reports Camaron Kao for Taipei Times.
“We are unsure whether demand will improve much for the second half of this year…the company may start raising steel prices at the end of the third quarter at the earliest,” Tsai Yen-ling, an analyst at Grand Cathay Securities, said in a Fox Business article.
“Market conditions have changed rapidly in recent days, mostly due to oversupply in China,” China Steel vice president Liu Jih-gang said in the article. “When they [Chinese steel mills] cannot sell all of their products, they cut prices.”
Moreover, the market is being flooded with cheaper Japanese steel due to the yen’s recent depreciation.