Marshall Thomas: Timber Markets Give And Take

While timber prices were steady during the third quarter of 2018, there were some troubling developments impacting timber markets that continue to struggle to recover from the Great Recession.

“It doesn’t seem like timber markets can get a break,” Marshall Thomas, President of F&W Forestry Services, writes in the latest issue of his company’s quarterly newsletter, the F&W Forestry Report.

At the start of the quarter, housing and wood exports markets were doing fairly well, but by September, home construction had slowed and the trade war between the U.S. and China boiled over and is now impacting forest products.

“Housing starts seem stuck at 1.2 million, and there are way too many multi-family starts (which use much less lumber than single family homes),” Thomas said.

“And just when we thought the Chinese markets, which have propped up the West Coast log and lumber markets, were going to start positively affecting the Southern U.S., the trade wars take that new market away—along with established wood export markets out of the Northeast and the West,” Thomas added.

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE FALL 2018 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW