Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
January 11, 2014
Our company continues to extend our coverage around the country. John Temples has opened an office for us in Michigan. We now have offices in Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas and the Atlanta area along with our newest office in Lansing, Michigan.
I will be traveling later this week as I am speaking to the AWMI Chicago Chapter on Thursday evening (January 16th). You can get more information about the dinner, agenda and tickets from Amanda.Tomsovic@arcelormittal.com.
I will also be attending the AHR Expo in New York City on January 21 & 22. If you would like to meet with me during these two days please shoot me an email: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
Last week we were reviewing portions of our new website as we strive to make it easier to understand and more available to our members. We added a video to the historical pricing section of our website. This is a members only section which is located under the Pricing tab and is the first sub-menu called “Price History.” When you are in the Price History section we have a tutorial video which you can access by clicking on the top right hand module which is titled “Video Tutorial.” We hope the tutorial will assist in making your experience with the interactive graphics and tables more productive.
We will be publishing a Premium Supplement for our Premium Level members on Monday of this week. We also have our Power Point presentation of last week’s survey results ready for our Premium Level members. If you would like to change your membership level from Executive to Premium please contact Diana, Brett or myself in our main office: 800-432-3475 or info@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update. Please tell your friends about us and have them visit our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com to register for a trial or to become our latest member company.
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, “