Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
November 24, 2013
Steel Market Update will publish our second Premium Supplement Newsletter on Monday. Included will be our SMU Key Market Indicators and forecast, September imports by product, port and country and articles related to our most recent steel market analysis not available elsewhere.
If you are interested in upgrading one of your memberships to the Premium Level please contact our office at: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone at 800-432-3475 (706-216-5440).
Our next Monthly Newsletter will be published early next week. The Monthly Newsletter packages all of the key events and data from the month of November in an easily digestible format. We do include exclusive articles for just our Monthly members from Peter Wright and me. The newsletter is for those who do not want to read our Executive Newsletter three times per week yet would appreciate our analysis and Keys to Watch for the month of December. This newsletter is intended for the busy executive, smaller companies who cannot yet afford the Executive Newsletter or those just wanting an over-view of the market once per month. It can also be an excellent review for our Executive members who would desire one. The cost is a reasonable $300 per year.
A note for those of you who would like to speak with me this week – I am in California for the next 10 days. I can be reached on my cell phone: 770-596-6268 (California is 3 hours behind east coast time) or by email: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
On December 5th and 6th I will be in New York City attending the AIIS dinner and other industry related events. On the 8th of December I will be in Phoenix speaking to the HARDI wholesalers steel committee.
We continue to collect comments regarding our new website. The vast majority of them are finding the site expansive and useful. As an existing member we do need for you to log into the website at least once to adjust your account settings and change your password. If you have misplaced the user name and password we sent to you previously – we can reset it and send you a new one. Just contact our office at: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or you are more than welcome to contact our office by phone for assistance: 800-432-3475. Both John Temples and Brett Linton will be in the office to work through any issues you might be having and to introduce you to the website.
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Sincerely,
John Packard
Publisher
John Packard
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Final Thoughts
We had an October surprise here at SMU on Wednesday. I was working from the CRU office in Pittsburgh, and the internet connection briefly went out. As luck would have it, that happened smack in the middle of a live Community Chat webinar. Fortunately, my colleague David Schollaert stepped in, Zekelman Industries CEO Barry Zekelman rolled with the punches – and the show went on. Could there be any more October surprises in store for us and for the steel market?
Final Thoughts
We just wrapped up another Steel 101 workshop, easily the most hands-on industry workshop on steelmaking and market fundamentals, in this humble opinion. Last week on Tuesday and Wednesday, SMU’s Steel 101 was held in Starkville, Miss.
Final Thoughts
Everybody has an opinion about politics these days. More importantly for our readers, though, every business has a bottom line. A popular question in our most recent steel buyers survey asked how uncertainty around the upcoming US presidential election could affect that line.
Final Thoughts
I’m trying to make sure this is not a TL;DR Final Thoughts. As a journalism school professor once told me, ‘No one but your mom reads more than 1,000 words.’ Also, as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand as well. With that in mind, below are a couple of charts that I think go a long way toward explaining how prices and lead times have been relatively stable despite concerns about demand.
Final Thoughts
It’s another week of big headlines for the world writ large – an expanding war in the Middle East, another potentially catastrophic hurricane – and not much going on in the world of steel prices. “Call me Stevie Wonder, I see nothing.” That’s how one service center executive described the current sheet market. There seems to be almost a competition among some of our Community Chat guests and contributors to outdo each other in flowery ways to say, “