The polyester filament yarn market experienced a pulse-like rally on July 8. According to publicly available industry data, the average sales-to-production ratio of sample enterprises reached 103.6%, a sharp increase of 60.7 percentage points from the previous trading day’s close. This figure indicates that daily shipments exceeded daily production, leading to a phased reduction in factory inventories.
Background
The rally was primarily driven by upstream factors. International crude oil prices rebounded consecutively on July 7 and 8, pushing up the prices of polyester raw materials such as PX, PTA, and MEG. The rising cost of raw materials directly squeezed the processing profit margins of polyester filament yarn, forcing factories to adjust their quotations.
Looking at the distribution of sales data, while market sentiment improved overall, the divergence was significant. Among sample enterprises, the highest sales-to-production ratio reached 300%, while the lowest was only 10%. More than half of the enterprises had a ratio below 100%, indicating that not all manufacturers benefited equally from this rally. High-ratio enterprises were mostly concentrated in standard specifications such as POY 75D/36F and FDY 50D/24F, while differentiated varieties performed relatively weakly.
Industry Impact
This concentrated restocking behavior was essentially a stress reaction from downstream weaving mills under the expectation of rising raw material prices. Gray fabric inventories in major weaving clusters such as Shengze, Changxing, and Xiaoshan had already been at medium-to-high levels, with no significant increase in end-user orders. Therefore, the sales burst on July 8 was more about inventory transfer from polyester factories to weaving mills, rather than genuine demand pull from end consumers.
For polyester filament yarn factories, the short-term improvement in the sales ratio helps alleviate inventory pressure. However, it is crucial to be cautious: if the raw material price rally does not persist, downstream restocking momentum will quickly fade. Historical experience shows that such pulse-like rallies often last only 3 to 5 trading days, after which the sales ratio rapidly falls back to the breakeven level.
For downstream weaving mills, chasing prices at the current juncture carries certain risks. If crude oil prices correct, polyester raw materials will lose cost support, and high-priced inventories built earlier may face devaluation losses. Additionally, export orders remain constrained by overseas destocking cycles and exchange rate fluctuations, and the actual recovery in demand needs further observation.