I guess this article should have answered the question: who's making money when the lumber price rise ?
Answer is... not the sawmill, not HomeDepot... it's "the market" that buy bundles and sell them to HomeDepot... That means, the suites are making money, once again... The lumber price increase have nothing to do with (struggling) production. This is a real shitty economy... and poor to middle class workers are once again paying for it.
Thankfully the lumber prices do seem to have come under control somewhat. It's currently USD$ 351.80 per 1000 board feet. Although that is still somewhat above the 25 year pre-pandemic average it pretty reasonable when taking things like inflation and pandemic induced changes into account.
Many price spikes that we have seen as of late is from consolidation of industries, not COVID or other factors that have worked as a veil for investors to control asset markets.
"Concrete seems more mixed."
Brilliant as always.
I guess this article should have answered the question: who's making money when the lumber price rise ?
Answer is... not the sawmill, not HomeDepot... it's "the market" that buy bundles and sell them to HomeDepot... That means, the suites are making money, once again... The lumber price increase have nothing to do with (struggling) production. This is a real shitty economy... and poor to middle class workers are once again paying for it.
what's the latest on pricing?
Thankfully the lumber prices do seem to have come under control somewhat. It's currently USD$ 351.80 per 1000 board feet. Although that is still somewhat above the 25 year pre-pandemic average it pretty reasonable when taking things like inflation and pandemic induced changes into account.
One huge consideration that I would suggest is the aggregation in the lumber industry by private equity firms and large financial institutions. You touch on this, but I think it is the main reason. This google search lays out a lot of the acquisitions in lumber, which started to accelerate about a year prior to the price surge: https://www.google.com/search?q=lumber+suppliers+purchased+by+investment+firms&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS945US945&oq=lumber+suppliers+purchased+by+investment+firms&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l2.14703j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Many price spikes that we have seen as of late is from consolidation of industries, not COVID or other factors that have worked as a veil for investors to control asset markets.