Steel Products Prices North America

SMU Hot Rolled Price Average Drops to $640 Per Ton

Written by John Packard

October 19, 2014

On Friday, Steel Market Update adjusted our hot rolled coil price range from $630-$670 per ton to $620-$660 per ton. This action was taken after multiple buyers from across the country produced information regarding numerous mills taking aggressive positions for new hot rolled orders. We mentioned in our Thursday evening newsletter that we were considering taking action at that time but we wanted to collect more data before making a late week move with our pricing (as opposed to waiting until Tuesday).

We continue to receive information which suggests that prices will continue to be a moving target over the next few weeks and could very well fall further.

As one service center executive told us on Thursday of last week, “Spot prices are a little difficult to pinpoint because we are typically buying products with significant extras. We can boil out HR at slightly below $30.”

Without taking extras into consideration a number of buyers confirmed that there are offers in the marketplace for tonnage (2,000 tons or more) below $31.00/cwt. We are choosing not to take the bottom end of our range below $620 per ton until we are able to canvass an even greater number of buyers which we can do through our survey.

Steel Market Update will begin our mid-October flat rolled steel market survey on Monday of this week and we will continue to make one-on-one contacts with buyers as well to see how prevalent the lower offers are becoming and if the buyers feel HRC will break through the $600 threshold.

John Packard

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