During the first few months of 2014, the southeastern United States experienced extreme winter weather and more than its fair share of rainfall. Devastating ice storms in certain areas early in the year brought about necessary salvage operations that, combined with elevated rainfall across the entire region, caused prices to be volatile on a south wide basis.
Timber prices across the South showed little movement in the March/April 60-day period. Hardwood pulpwood prices increased 4% Southwide from the Jan/Feb price, making it the biggest mover this period. Price variations observed among the three reporting regions (East, Mid and West) are mainly due to the continuation of severe weather in some regions.
While pulpwood prices across North America are driven by competition for fiber, we tend to see higher price volatility in pulpwood prices in the Northeast and Lake States due to availability factors that are unique to these markets.
Historically, standing pine timber was appraised and purchased using volume units of measure; MBF (thousand board feet) for sawtimber products and the cord for pulpwood products. Ultimately, however, each load of cut timber is purchased by weight and not volume: it is the weight of a load that is measured when a truck full of timber crosses a scale at the mill.
We enjoy any opportunity to speak with our customers. One question we often hear is, "How much is my logger or dealer getting for my timber at the mill?" It's not a question we can answer directly, butt we can say is if there is a difference between the price a dealer or logger offers the timberland owner and the price listed in our stumpage price database, then there should be a logical explanation for that difference.
The cost structure of a logging business provides insight into the differences between stumpage prices paid to timberland owners and delivered prices paid by the mill.
Short-term changes in stumpage prices are generally related to weather events that cause a supply interruption. The 571 inches of rain that fell across the South last year represented a 22.2 percent increase from 2012 to 2013. This led to wet operating conditions that impeded logging, restricting supply and driving stumpage prices up.
Industrial production and manufacturing and non-manufacturing industry performance as reported in Forest2Market's monthly Economic Outlook, a 24-month forecast of macroeconomic indicators.
Nearly seven years after the housing market experienced its largest downturn since the Great Depression, and five years into the recovery from the recession that followed, the housing market has not yet lived up to many analysts' expectations for 2014. As the market continues to sputter along a path to recovery, here we take a look at how the leading market indicators have fared since 2008.
