Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by Brett Linton
February 23, 2015
President Obama vetoed the Keystone XL Pipeline bill passed by the U.S. Congress. We have a full story on the veto on our website blog.
We are trying to put more and more general interest stories, press releases, etc. on our website blog as opposed to publishing everything in our newsletters. This way we hope to shorten the length of our newsletters a bit (I have one service center who complains they take too long to read). Try to take a moment each day to check out our website and especially our blog postings.
A note about our 5th Steel Summit Conference which is scheduled for September 1 & 2, 2015. We have already booked a strong line-up and we continue to add to it. We will begin rolling out our keynote speakers and some of the special speakers we have selected for this year’s Steel Summit. I think you will be pleased with the quality of speakers and the topics we have chosen to cover.
We will also be rolling out our sponsorships and our booth program very soon. If your company has an interest in getting your name and information in front of 300 manufacturing, service centers, trading companies, steel mills and toll processors you may want to consider becoming a sponsor or setting up a booth at this year’s conference. You can send me an email and I will get you more information as to what we are planning and how you can work with us to get your name in front of our attendees: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
My opinion: I don’t know where the bottom of the market will final rest. I thought the comment made by the owner of one of the wholesalers was dead nuts on today. There is no pain when prices begin to rise. The painful process is when prices peak and then start moving down quickly. We have already been through that. I would expect end users to begin looking to book tons as hot rolled pierces $500 per ton (and cold rolled and galvanized base prices pierce $30.00/cwt). Do you think this market will go to $22.00/cwt ($440 per ton) base hot rolled like it did in June 2009?
The one thing I hear over and over from service centers, end users and wholesalers is business is decent. In some cases better than decent.
I do not consider this a bearish steel market. Steel is moving and moving quite well in many industries (sorry energy got turned upside down with drop in oil pricing – this too will change).
How long will it take to balance inventories? I am hearing even from the most bearish that the inventory situation will be taken care of by May. Second half should be strong.
That is what I am hearing and what I think (for what it is worth).
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
Brett Linton
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