While longs have been seeing some pre-election action, flats continued to be under liquidity pressure. BF rebar prices up on pre-election demand: Mills took an interim hike of INR 500-1,000/tonne ($6-12/t) in list prices of rebars which encouraged a nominal increase of INR 500 ($6/t) for trade-level blast furnace rebars. The latter closed w-o-w at an average INR 53,500/t ($641/t). Project segment prices too rose on cue by INR 1,000/t ($12/t), to settle at INR 52,000-52,500/t ($622-628/t). But, market sources said the hike was on account of the emergence of good demand ahead of the elections which are scheduled to start from 19 April and continue till 1 June in seven phases.
