Weak demand from US ex porters for cardboard boxes and the possibility of a slowdown in domestic demand continues to depress the Jefferson Smurfit share price.

The real worry now for investors is that manufacturers will not be able to hold container board prices at the $475 (€524) per tonne level through the first quarter of next year.

Demand in the September period failed to pick up as well as expected and the industry has now moved into what are usually the quiet months of December and January.

Despite plant shutdowns or downtime, which have taken out capacity over the past year and shored up product prices, efficiency improvements and synergies from consolidations have resulted in what industry analysts refer to as a capacity "creep". This creep factor has added about one to two percentage points to capacity and in difficult demand conditions could put downward pressure on prices. Some marginal localised price discounting has already been seen, but every time prices comes under pressure, the industry responds with more downtime. So far this has worked. But with no real pick-up in demand expected before the spring, the odds are that the industry will not be able to hold prices - and nervousness about these will keep investors away.