Tuesday, February 09, 2010

A few Words from Barclay's Paper Analyst

From a Pulp and Paper Week Report
Barclay's Capital analyst, Peter Ruschmeier, estimated US uncoated mechanical paper (groundwood containing paper used in inserts, paperback books, and certain magazines) is to increase 22.6% in 2010; coated freesheet to rise 14.4%; coated mechanical (publication papers) to be up 13.2%; market pulp up 2.0%; and uncoated freesheet up 1.1%; with newsprint down 7.2%. Many industry observers feel that demand will increase in 2010 and rising costs will squeeze margins. Most pulp, paper, and board producers will focus on raising selling prices to offset margin pressure.

Coy Paper might take some exception with the aggressive growth figures on both uncoated and coated groundwood papers as well as coated free sheet. Unless advertising dramatically improves, I would be hard pressed to forecast a growth of even half these figures. We DO agree that mills will attempt to increase pricing (for all grades) throughout the year in an effort to stay ahead of the cost curve.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

....another analyst, another opinion. I would agree with Mr. Vallely. These growth figures are somewhat aggressive and really big things must occur (beyond just a stronger economy)before these figures are realized.

Anonymous said...

Really do enjoy reading this stuff you publish daily. Very good market data, thank you for making it available.