After plunging more than 33% since the week ending April 21, the freefall in southern yellow pine lumber prices has abated. Mill2Market, Forest2Market's weekly lumber price report, shows composite price trends over the last three quarters.

• In  4Q2009, the average price for southern yellow pine was $245.08/MBF.

• On the week ending January 6, southern yellow pine was fetching $252.18/MBF. This date marks the beginning of the upward trend in prices.

• By the week ending April 21, prices reached $393.73/MBF, a 56% increase in less than four months.

• The week ending April 21 was the turning point for the market, however. Between then and the week ending June 23, 2010, prices fell more than 33% to $263.26/MBF.

• Prices have moved higher in the weeks following June 23, though only slightly. For the week ending July 7, southern yellow pine composite pricing was $267.84/MBF. This represents a 1.74% increase over the June 23 lows.

"After the market adjustment in May and June," said Daniel Stuber, director of operations & data quality at Forest2Market, "supply and demand appear to be in balance at the moment, suggesting a new price level has been reached."

"While it's much lower than the nearly $400/MBF we saw earlier in the year, the new price level shows a stronger, more balanced market than we saw in 4Q2009, when the average price was just $245.08/MBF," said Stuber. "Over the last four weeks, the average has been $267.51/MBF, or 9.15% higher. In this economy and with continued uncertainty in the housing market, that improvement is more remarkable than it might seem."