LEONARD LUMBER REPORT: September finished the week up $11

This Week:

The September finished the week up $11. It felt a whole lot better than only 11 bucks. This is a supply-driven market rally, and with no layups, the industry can’t trade. It is forcing them to pay up each time. The mills are going along for the ride. If this type of market stays in place—and there is no reason it doesn’t—all will be forced to relish making 3% on a car…..

More of the same.

The spread traded into a plus 1.10 before reversing and resuming the expiration selloff. With futures trading in a slight uptrend, the front month held value for longer. That value tends to erode getting closer to expiration as the focus is on liquidation, while the second month is normally firm. When measuring trends, a change in the spread’s behavior is the first indication of a change in the trade. Put the spread trading over, and we could start to look for much higher numbers.

We are not there yet.

And finally,

I challenge the SYP producers to sell 5 cars at $500 in both September and in November. This is a profitable level for most mills. It makes no sense that the producers aren’t locking in this gift. Georgia has a better chance to beat the Tide then pine staying this high.

The technical read is very interesting.

The futures market has been choppy for 2 years now. In 2026, the trend has been higher highs and higher lows. While it looks like a sideways trade, there is an underlying uptrend. The weekly channel points are 673.50 and 573.90. On Thursday, September takes over with 673.50 as the upside objective. The longer-term read confirms much of our short-term points. 650.00 is a momentum area, as is 609.00. The main takeaway is that the channel is up. The positive momentum is weighted at 30% above 650.00, while the negative momentum is weighted at nearly 60% below 609.00. That indicates that a hedging program should be in place for your inventory. Let’s face it—if you started to hedge already, you are only offsides a few dollars. A rounding error in the grand scheme of things.

July has 875 left open. Historically that is about 97 cars a day. Pretty normal.