Where Are Lumber Prices Headed Next?
Matt Meyers
- Yesler
- June 13, 2022
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Do you want to know what will happen next with lumber prices? Most people look to three sources of wishful thinking, old news, and opinion:
1) Traders who speculate on lumber and have a vested interest in where prices go next.
2) Pricing surveys that print what happened last week.
3) Consultants who analyze and share opinions on source 1 & 2.
All are lagging indicators because the commodity lumber price is a lagging indicator of the market fundamentals of supply and demand. At Yesler, we take a completely different approach. We confidentially collect data from participating lumber yards, then we share aggregated data so they can see trends larger than their operational view. The smart people at these participating lumber yards use this data to make informed buying decisions without all the extra noise.
Some people at lumber yards just want to be told what to do. Those aren’t our people. Here is a quick quiz to see if you are one of us:
If lead times are shorter, and builder demand is falling, and lumber yard inventories are rising, what is the more likely direction of lumber pricing in future weeks?
a) Up
b) Down
If it’s not obvious, here is a clue: The quiz question describes what participating lumber yards’ data has shown for months. The likely direction of price was, and still is, down. Here is what it looks like in our data for the last two months:
If you operate a lumber yard that services professional contractors and you want to see the bigger picture and make your own decisions, you are our kind of operator. Join with us, and we’ll help you with custom analysis any time you want to dive deeper. If you want to keep listening to speculation and rhetoric, then we are not for you.
It’s easy to participate, and you won’t pay anything until your data is part of the bigger picture. Need a reference from one of our participants? Sorry. Our participants share data in confidence. That includes keeping their identity confidential too. We’ll do the same for you in protecting your data.
June 13th, 2022
