Finished long market commenced crumbling at long last after holding on against all odds for the past 1 week. The initial rally which was fuelled by multiplicity of factors viz., shortage , cost push on account of iron ore shortage culminating in sponge iron rally and hike in power tariff yielded space to realism.

End use buying at no point of time had picked up owing to sluggish economy and construction activity however the speculative buying did create a façade of optimism which realistically never existed. In the milieu price notched handsome gains upto INR 4000 per tonne.

Demand for finished steel is low owing to unavailability of labors. With temperature soaring high across the country, labors do not want to work. Demand will continue to remain weak during monsoons as well.

However fissures started appearing in pencil ingot price since last week losing upto INR 1400 per tonne and it was the turn of TMT bars once the rug was pulled from below the feet.

Likewise sponge iron has lost upto INR 1200 per tonne over the week with falling finished demand and good availability of pellet despite shortage of supply from Odisha.

The coming fortnight is unlikely to spring any surprises with downtrend likely to stretch till the budget in 1st week of July wherein in some policy announcements must just set in positive momentum.