In week 34 of 2026, the textile commodity market showed a rare pattern of strong filament and weak raw materials: polyester POY rose 2.00% to 8767.5 yuan/ton, while acrylonitrile plunged 4.46% and PTA fell 3.67%. The coexistence of downstream gains and upstream losses on the same chain indicates that market pricing has shifted from cost-driven to supply-demand driven.
Event Background
According to data from Shengyi She (a commodity monitoring platform), from August 24 to 28, 10 textile products rose, only 3 fell, with an average weekly change of 0.03%. The top three gainers were all polyester filament products: POY, DTY, and FDY, rising 2.00%, 1.76%, and 1.70%, respectively. Meanwhile, upstream PTA fell 3.67% to 6213.25 yuan/ton, acrylonitrile dropped 4.46% to 11433.33 yuan/ton, and polyester staple fiber slipped 0.96%.
Notably, polyester filament year-on-year gains exceeded 21%, PTA rose 26.54%, and acrylonitrile was still 44.12% higher than a year ago. This suggests that despite short-term corrections, most products remain at historically high levels. The divergence between filament and raw materials implies that profit margins in the processing segment are expanding, while the raw material side faces valuation normalization pressure.
Industry Impact
The continuous rise in polyester filament is closely related to downstream weaving factories' restocking pace. POY, as the raw material for DTY, rose 2% weekly, surpassing DTY's 1.76%, indicating that speculative demand and rigid procurement are overlapping. For weaving mills, higher raw material costs will squeeze immediate profits, but if end-order demand follows, price increases can be partially passed through.
PTA's 3.67% decline did not drag down polyester filament, suggesting that filament pricing now relies more on its own supply-demand balance rather than simply following costs. This reminds buyers: when raw materials and finished products diverge, assess each side's fundamentals separately rather than estimating prices via simple cost-plus logic.
Acrylonitrile's 4.46% weekly drop is the largest of the week. Its year-on-year gain of 44.12% indicates that prior increases were excessive, and the current correction is a high-level adjustment. Acrylonitrile is mainly used in acrylic fiber and ABS resin; weak downstream demand combined with new capacity release may be the main reasons for price pressure. For acrylic yarn producers, lower raw material costs help ease cost pressure, but sustainability needs monitoring.
Cotton and cotton yarn prices were basically flat, with weekly changes within 0.06%, indicating a stalemate in the cotton market. Viscose staple fiber and viscose yarn rose slightly by 0.42% and 0.69%, reflecting a mild recovery in the viscose chain. Overall, the cotton and viscose sectors fluctuated less, while chemical fiber sectors showed clear divergence.