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Following market consultation and as previously announced, Random Lengths will make the following changes over the next few weeks.
Random Lengths to move to simplify monthly average calculation
With effect from September 2020, Random Lengths will simplify the process for calculating monthly averages.
Monthly averages appear in the Random Lengths weekly publication and in Yardstick. Previous to September 2020, they were calculated using the ISO 8601 rule, whereby the first week of the year is the week containing the first Thursday.
In determining monthly averages, Random Lengths expanded that rule, so the first week of a month is the week that contains the first Thursday of the month.
From September 2020, Random Lengths will use the simple arithmetic average of all prices published in the calendar month to calculate the monthly averages. This should not affect calculations for the rest of 2020, but may impact the averages in 2021 if the first day of the month falls on a Friday.
Random Lengths to change Lumber Publication date
At the same time, Random Lengths will move to publishing lumber prices online with the actual date of assessment (usually a Thursday) rather than the date of the weekly publication (usually a Friday date). This approach is more consistent with other parts of the Fastmarkets business.
The first publication where the lumber prices will appear with a Thursday date will be Thursday, October 8, 2020. The Lumber Market Report pdf files will appear with the date of the transmission (usually Thursday) as the publication date.
The publication date in the Lumber Market Report database (PUBDATE in the lbr_ems.csv) and spreadsheet (Date in the lbr_ems.xls) subscription files transmitted by email will also contain the date of transmission (usually Thursday), instead of the date of the weekly publication (usually a Friday date).
Random Lengths to change pdf file name conventions
With effect from October 5, 2020, Random Lengths will change the file name convention for publication pdf files.
The revised file names for publication pdf files will refer to the issue number and the year, instead of the month and week number. This approach is more consistent with other parts of the Fastmarkets business.
If you have any automated systems that refer to the filename, please take note that they may need to be updated. Database (csv) and spreadsheet (xls) subscription files transmitted by email filenames are unchanged.
List of publications and file name changes follow.
For comments and queries, please send email to: pricing.risi@fastmarkets.com
To see other Random Lengths Coverage Notes, go to: http://www.rlpi.com/Coverage-Notes/
To see Random Lengths pricing methodologies and specification documents, go to:
http://www.rlpi.com/Methodology/
List of Publications and File Name Changes
Midweek
Example for Tuesday, October 6, 2020 issue
Before Oct 5:
mid_[two digit YEAR][two-digit MONTH]w[one-digit WEEK] ie. Mid_2010w2.pdf
After Oct 5:
MID_[2-digit ISSUE]_[four digit YEAR] ie MID_37_2020.pdf
Lumber
Example for Thursday, October 8, 2020 issue
lbr_[two digit YEAR][two-digit MONTH]w[one-digit WEEK] ie. Lbr_2010w2.pdf
LBR_[2-digit ISSUE]_[four digit YEAR] ie LBR_41_2020.pdf
Panel
Example for Friday, October 9, 2020 issue
pnl_[two digit YEAR][two-digit MONTH]w[one-digit WEEK] ie. Pnl_2010w2.pdf
PNL_[2-digit ISSUE]_[four digit YEAR] ie PNL_41_2020.pdf
Random Lengths
rl_[two digit YEAR][two-digit MONTH]w[one-digit WEEK] ie. Rl_2010w2.pdf
RL_[2-digit ISSUE]_[four digit YEAR] ie RL_41_2020.pdf
International
Example for Wednesday, October 21, 2020 issue
rli_[two digit YEAR][two-digit MONTH]w[one-digit WEEK] ie. Rl_2010w4.pdf
RLI_[2-digit ISSUE]_[four digit YEAR] ie RLI_19_2020.pdf
Yardstick
Example for Wednesday, October 14, 2020 transmission for September Yardstick issue
ys_[two digit YEAR][two-digit MONTH] ie. Ys_2009.pdf
YS_[2-digit ISSUE]_[four digit YEAR] ie YS_09_2020.pdf