Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
January 19, 2015
I am in Charleston, South Carolina for our Steel 101 workshop. We have a great group here with representatives from manufacturing, service centers, steel mills and the financial community. The employees at Nucor Berkeley were very receptive to our visit. The mill provided a number of metallurgists so we were able to tour the mill in small groups of 5 people which allowed us the freedom of movement and the ability to get one on one attention with our questions. I want to take a moment to sincerely thank the Nucor team for working with Steel Market Update and our attendees to make this workshop a great success.
For those of you in the north who thought about coming but chose not to for whatever reason… The temperature today was 70 degrees. Our workshop is at the Charleston Harbor Resort & Marina which means we are on the Port of Charleston. I’ve included a photo of the hotel to give you a feel for the ambiance of the place.
Our next Steel 101 workshop will be in Chicago in May.
We are also working on dates for our Sales Training Workshop aiming for June in Chicago.
A question was asked of me by one of our Steel 101 instructors if Steel Market Update would be interested in conducting an inside support staff training program. We have actually done a custom training program for a steel mill on this exact subject. If this is something of interest to you and your company please contact me at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
Its been a long day for all of us here in sunny Charleston and I have to prepare for another training day before heading back to my office.
As always thank you for your business as it is truly appreciated.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
When a mapmaker constructs a map, it’s always to the contours of the land. Or sea. That is, the mapmaker doesn’t say, “Look, these rocks really don’t belong here, so I’m not going to include them in the harbor map.” Uncharted rocks, sink ships (along with loose lips).
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.