<b>Mixed Paper Holding Up</B>

One of the biggest surprises for paper stock markets over the past several months has been the performance of mixed paper. Never a skyrocketing grades, over the past several months the grade seems to have held fairly stable, even with the stronger fluctuations for several other grades.

The grade has benefited from strong demand by many insulators and building products companies. Additionally, mixed paper continues to be used by some mills as an extender. This is in spite of old corrugated prices falling sharply over the past several months.

Recently, while OCC seems to be stabilizing in a number of regions of the country there still are reports that prices haven’t responded with any upward movement. Mixed paper during the same time has moved up, shrinking the spread between the two materials.

This splintering trend is throwing some confusion into the market. There already has been a growing spread between OCC and old news. The latter grade has been strengthening through the late summer and fall, while OCC has not followed suit.

With mixed paper markets holding up fairly well, there are some expectations that OCC has nowhere to go but up. The change in upward pricing, however, is likely to be limited through the rest of this year. It appears more people are pointing to next year as when the improvement in markets for many of the low grades will start to take hold.