Market Report 21.02.2025

What happened this week

The question now arises as to when market reports from our position will make sense again. Of course, this is not only due to the fact that we are currently unable to develop any real activities in China and are therefore only onlookers in the largest market for hides and skins, but also because there is currently little movement on the market for hides and skins. To be honest, most people are only interested in finding a secure market for their products and are less concerned with the question of how much prices will change in the near future and what commercial benefits or risk they might be able to derive from this. You only need to take a look at price movements in recent years. Since the end of the coronavirus pandemic, price swings have steadily decreased. The price range between the highest and lowest price has not been as narrow as it was last year for ages. Logically speaking, this also means that supply and demand are either almost completely in balance or that this state is created by behaviour on one side of the market or the other. Whatever the actual reason in the end, at the moment nobody needs to complain that prices fluctuate too much and therefore make calculations difficult. Unstable prices are usually not a desirable situation for commodity traders, but in most cases they are for producers. Almost everyone has now settled into this stability, without it being possible to say that this is a reflection of positive business developments for everyone. A lack of dynamism on the raw material markets is often also a sign that there is a lack of impetus and creativity on the markets. The problems of the leather industry have been sufficiently and adequately discussed and without a clear direction, it is unlikely that anything will change in the near future. Based on these impressions, many people will be travelling to Milan again next week, possibly hoping that the knot will burst at the trade fair. In view of the current geopolitical situation, it doesn’t really seem likely. Nevertheless, by the end of next week we will probably have a clearer idea of what to expect from the markets, at least until the summer. As we can’t really report on business activity because there was simply hardly any this week, we too will have to wait for next week and hope that no significant events will occur that would massively upset the current balance.