4.11 Soda Ash Daily Review: The loose supply and demand pattern continues, and the soda ash market continues to operate weakly and steadily

Soda ash market analysis

Today, the soda ash market is trading light, and price fluctuations are limited. As of now, the price of light soda ash in East China is 1300-1500 yuan/ton, and the price of heavy soda ash is 1450-1500 yuan/ton; the price of light soda ash in Central China is 1280-1400 yuan/ton, and the price of heavy soda ash is 1300-1450 yuan/ton. Today, the domestic soda ash market continued its weak consolidation trend, with low trading activity. The overall industry operating rate remained high, the market supply was sufficient, and some soda ash units in Hubei Province were running at reduced capacity. Downstream users generally have low purchasing intentions, and only maintain rigid demand to replenish inventory. Some terminal companies purchase in moderation at low prices, mostly with a cautious wait-and-see attitude.

Futures dynamics

According to Boduoduo data: On April 11, the opening price of the main soda ash contract SA2505 was 1316 yuan/ton, and finally closed at 1328 yuan/ton, with a daily increase of +0.38%. The intraday high was 1,334 yuan/ton, the low was 1,311 yuan/ton, and the total position was 625,082 lots, down 41,781 lots from the previous month.

Today, the price of soda ash futures rebounded slightly with market sentiment. The main reason may be that the news that the US may negotiate with China to end the trade war in the market at noon led to a rebound in sentiment. However, given the doubts about its authenticity, the market reaction was relatively limited. From a fundamental perspective, there were individual disturbances on the soda ash supply side, but the overall impact was not significant. The inventory pressure in the middle and upper reaches still existed. Although the downstream demand scale still had a certain volume and recovery expectations, the actual demand increase brought by the main contract delivery was difficult to form a strong concentrated improvement drive for the short-term market. In the short term, the fundamental weakness of the soda ash market is difficult to change, and it is necessary to guard against the risk of soft pressure before the delivery of the main contract. In the short term, we can pay attention to whether there will be policy repair expectations after the macro sentiment stabilizes.

Market Forecast

In the short term, downstream purchasing enthusiasm is not high, and inventory replenishment is still the main focus. The supply-side pressure remains unchanged, while the demand-side support is limited. In the absence of substantial positive stimulus, the soda ash spot market is expected to continue its weak consolidation trend. Focus on the downstream industry's inventory replenishment rhythm and corporate inventory changes.