Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
April 27, 2015
The rash of price increase announcements threw one of the articles I have been working on to the back burner for today. However, the flame will be lit once again tomorrow. The article is about foreign steel imports. In particular, I have been talking to a number of trading companies about their order books, spread between foreign and domestic and what they anticipate for the future. The results may surprise…
We still have a few seats left at the next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop. The dates are May 19 & 20 and the host hotel is the Radisson at Star Plaza in Merriville, Indiana. Our mill tour will be at NLMK USA Portage, Indiana steel mill. The price for the workshop is $2000 per person with discounts available for Steel Market Update member companies and for those sending more than one person to the workshop. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone: 800-432-3475.
For those of you looking past May – the Steel 101 program following Merriville will be in Davenport, Iowa (yep, Iowa) and we will tour the SSAB mini-mill. The dates are October 6 & 7, 2015.
For those wanting to go to something that will be an important networking opportunity, informative with business and steel forecasts and entertaining – I’m talking about our 5th Steel Summit Conference. Dates are September 1 & 2, 2015. Early bird registration will begin later this week on our website.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
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.