I pulled the five most-discussed supply signals from the trade boards, procurement forums, and vendor newsletters over the past 24 hours. Each entry has a one-line explanation of why it moved and a link back to the primary source — the full write-up is in the attached brief.

Top 5 Supply Signals (March 4, 2026)

Signal	One-sentence explanation
Anodised aluminium lead times slip to 9 weeks	Two Guangdong finishers paused new intake after a power-quota change, pushing quoted lead times from 6 to 9 weeks across the region.
Baltic dry rates cool for a third week	Softer grain volumes out of the Black Sea took another 4.1% off headline rates, the longest run of declines since last autumn.
Recycled PET premium narrows to 12%	New bottle-grade capacity in Rotterdam came online early, closing most of the gap with virgin resin for the first time in two years.
Freight insurers reprice Red Sea transits	Three underwriters moved war-risk surcharges to a per-voyage model, which buyers say makes quarterly landed-cost forecasts harder to hold.
Lithium carbonate steadies near 94,500 CNY/t	Spot prices flattened after Qinghai restarts offset weaker cathode demand, ending six sessions of drift.

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Suggested follow-ups

Compare this week's supply signals with the same window last month. Turn the brief into a six-slide deck for the Thursday buying call. Run this digest automatically every weekday at 07:30 and file it in Procurement.