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
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Final Thoughts
It’s once again A Tale of Two Cities in the steel market. Some are almost euphoric about Trump’s victory. Others, some rather bearish, are more focused on the day-to-day market between now and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
Final Thoughts
One of the perhaps unintentional perks of being a trade journalist is the opportunity to travel and cover an array of industry conferences and events. Some I've attended have been at fun locations, like Palm Springs and Tampa, Fla. Others have been in more practical locations, like SMU’s Steel Summit in Atlanta and American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) meetings in Washington, D.C.
Final Thoughts
t this point in the game I think what we can say about Nippon Steel’s proposed buy of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel is that it will go through, it won’t go through, or the outcome will be something new and completely unexpected. Then again, I’m probably still missing a few options.
Final Thoughts
President-elect Donald Trump continues to send shockwaves through the political establishment (again). And steel markets and ferrous scrap markets continue to be, well, anything but shocking. As the French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." (I thought the quote might have been Yankees catcher Yogi Berra in 1949. Google taught me something new today.)
Final Thoughts
President-elect Donald Trump will officially retake the White House on Jan. 20. I’ve been getting questions about how his administration’s policies might reshape the steel industry and domestic manufacturing. I covered the tumult and norm busting of Trump's first term: Section 232, Section 301, USMCA - and that's just on the trade policy side of things. It's safe to say that we'll have no shortage of news in 2025 when it comes to trade and tariffs.