[Daily steel market report] [2025-9-23]

**Today's steel market price briefing**
**Sep 23th, 2025**

According to market data on September 23, 2025, the steel market on that day generally showed weak demand and price pressure, and the traditional "golden September" peak season did not appear. Market transactions were quiet, especially for construction steel, although cost support remained strong.

Key Points

To understand the current market contradictions, attention should be paid to the following core driving factors:

- Demand side: "Golden September" fades, transactions are quiet.

The market has not experienced the traditional peak demand season. Specifically:  

- Construction demand significantly declines: The nationwide daily transaction volume of construction steel fell by 19.82% day-on-day and 16.79% week-on-week, reflecting very low downstream purchasing activity.  

- Weather affects construction: Rainy weather in southern regions directly impacted normal construction progress and demand release.  

- Market sentiment cautious: Rebar futures fluctuated downward, leading to reduced speculative demand, with traders primarily aiming to promote sales and clear existing inventory.

- Supply side: Inventory and production pressures coexist  

- Inventory pressure emerges: Especially for section steel and similar varieties, some regional markets reported high inventory levels, indicating significant supply pressure.  

- Production expectations remain strong: Although there are expectations for production restrictions, current hot metal output remains high overall, supporting raw material demand.

- Cost side: Strong support, but internal divergence occurs.Raw material prices are the most important support for current steel prices, but their internal trends differ:  

- Iron ore remains strong: Overall iron ore prices continue to stay strong.  

- Coking coal price decline: Coking coal prices have fallen somewhat.  

- Overall: Although the coking coal price drop partially alleviates steel mill cost pressures, the overall raw material cost remains high, providing strong bottom support for steel prices.- Macro and market sentiment  

- Policy impact: The Federal Reserve's interest rate cut in September provided only a short-term boost to market sentiment and did not effectively reverse the fundamentals of the domestic steel market. At the same time, the effectiveness of the steel industry's own "anti-involution" and growth-stabilizing policies remains to be seen.  

- Weaker futures market: Black commodity futures fluctuated at low levels on the day, with rebar closing in the red, directly affecting confidence in the spot market.

Summary and Outlook 

Overall, the steel market on September 23, 2025, was characterized by a struggle between weak real demand and strong cost support.

- Short-term outlook: Due to weak demand and ongoing inventory pressures, steel prices are expected to continue facing downward pressure in the short term, mainly exhibiting weak oscillation. However, strong cost support makes a deep price drop unlikely.

- Medium- to long-term perspective: With the potential strengthening of industrial policy implementation and the arrival of traditional peak demand seasons, the supply-demand contradiction in steel may gradually ease. Meanwhile, production cost support remains strong, and steel prices are expected to continue oscillating upward.

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