Recently, the price of stainless steel materials has shown a trend of fluctuating upward.

    According to relevant reports, since March, the price increase trend in the stainless steel sheet market has been obvious. The mainstream quotation for 304 cold-rolled stainless steel has exceeded 13,500 yuan per ton, and the 201 hot-rolled narrow strip has returned to the 7,000 yuan per ton mark. As of March 20th, the total social inventory of stainless steel in the 89 warehouses of the mainstream markets across the country, in terms of the statistical caliber, is 1,121,521 tons, a week-on-week decrease of 0.48%. The futures price of stainless steel has been running relatively strongly this week. The main contract closed at 13,385, with a price increase of 1.17% within the week.

     This round of price increase is mainly driven by factors such as the rise in raw material costs, the contraction of the supply side, and the marginal improvement of the demand side. The cumulative increase in the nickel price within the year has exceeded 5%, the price of ferrochromium has broken through 8,500 yuan per 50 basic tons, and the purchase price of stainless steel scrap has been increased by 1,200 yuan per ton. At the same time, the strikes in European factories and the production restrictions of some small and medium-sized steel mills in China due to environmental protection policies have led to a year-on-year decrease of 10.97% in the market inventory. In addition, the release of replenishment demand in fields such as construction and new energy vehicles, combined with the boost of sentiment in the futures market, has significantly increased the activity of spot transactions.