Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
December 29, 2014
Thursday is New Year’s Day and a Holiday here in the United States. Steel Market Update will not publish on Thursday but we will be back to our normal schedule on Sunday, January 4, 2015. We will publish a Premium supplemental issue of our newsletter on either Wednesday or Friday of this week with Key Market Indicators and a number of other articles. If the US DOC updates the import license data yet this evening (Tuesday’s are when the government generally updates the SIMA data) we will include an article in the Premium supplement on the subject.
In tonight’s issue I have included a tentative calendar for workshops (including two new ones) and our 5th Steel Summit Conference. Over this past year we have been working very hard to attract extremely high quality and qualified instructors for our workshops. We have the capability to do special or custom workshops on a wide variety of topics. A good example is if your company would like to learn more about the laws and procedures regarding trade cases we have an experienced and well known attorney would would work with SMU and our customers. Other areas of interest may be sales or purchasing related, Managing Price Risk, Sourcing, Marketing and many other topics. If you have an area where you or your people would like to learn more on a one-on-one or custom workshop basis please contact me at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
Please note that we are adding two new workshops to this years calendar: Steel Sales Training – which is for experienced and those not yet exposed to the process of selling steel. The second new workshop is for management level people only and is tentatively being called: Steel Management: Managing Risk & Expectations. Keep your eyes open for this one as it will be quite different from anything out there.
Block out the August 31 – September 2, 2015 dates on your calendars (and tell your friends). We are going to produce our best Steel Summit Conference yet.
In Sunday’s issue of our Executive newsletter we will provide end of year data, analysis and what we thought were the important events/happenings during 2014. If you have an opinion on what should be included please shoot me an email: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
A reminder as we move into the New Year – we continue to offer a $100 bonus to those companies who recommend a new subscriber to our newsletter. You will receive the bonus in the form of a credit which can be used on any of our workshops, conference, upgrading your account, adding new people or renewing your membership. The credit must be used within 12 months from the date issued. If you have questions please contact us at: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or 800-432-3475. If no questions please go out and tell your friends about Steel Market Update.
We want to stop and wish everyone of our readers – whether existing customers, prospective customers or just managing to get your hands on our publication from time to time – a very Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year. We wish everyone much joy and prosperity in the coming year.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
Happy New Year!
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Sometimes new presidential administrations hit the ground running. No time for change like the present. And sometimes new administrations blast off on a SpaceX rocket bound for Mars. There’s a big universe, and we’ve got a lot of flags to plant. Such seems to be the case with the new Trump administration.
Final Thoughts
What’s been the impact of tariff threats on prices and demand? In short, not much – or at least that was the case when I was writing this column on Sunday afternoon. Spot activity for Canadian material, for example, has been put on hold over the last few weeks while the market waits to see what the new tariff landscape might look like.
Final Thoughts
Next Monday marks the start of the second Trump administration. The limbo we’ve been living in since Election Day in early November will finally come to an end. What better way to take a look at what’s coming up in Washington, D.C., than a conversation with Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) President Philip K. Bell. He […]
Final Thoughts
It’s another week of big headlines and ho-hum pricing moves – which is to say the start of 2025 is looking a lot like the end of 2024. Scrap has settled up $20 per gross ton (gt). Steel prices, however, were a soft sideways this week. Chalk it up to uneven demand and abundant supply. And while we’re not aware of any major outages, some of you tell us that you’ve lost some shipping days here and there because of the recent cold snap.
Final Thoughts
I wrote in a Final Thoughts a few years ago that it seemed all the swans were black. More recently, I’ve been asked by some of you what the wildcards are for 2025. You could probably make the case that all the cards are wild now.