Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 1, 2015
As this issue started and I began working on my final thoughts for tonight’s issue, it began with comments from one of our service center friends about the prospect of dumping suits being filed. As the evening progressed I started to receive a number of credible comments from steel mills, service centers and others. The focus then changed to highlight what I was learning and move much of what I was writing from final thoughts into the lead article.
Here is how the original thought began:
A note from one of our readers, “Trade case, odds are 99.9% coated filed tomorrow.” (Tomorrow meaning Wednesday, June 3rd). If this service center (who also was the first person to register to attend this year’s Steel Summit Conference) is correct, kudos. If not, we will have to start some sort of contest to see who can select the date for a trade case. Maybe we should have a second contest to see what countries are filed against by product…
My thanks to those of you who have been sharing what you have been learning regarding trade cases (and other subjects). If anyone out there hears something that you believe to be credible (or raises a question that needs some research) please send it my way. You can reach me almost 24 hours a day at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
It is always good to have fresh eyes looking at your product and services and providing feedback in an effort to help you improve. Here at Steel Market Update we are constantly reviewing and revising our products, whether it be one of our workshops, upgrading our Steel Summit Conference, adding a new conference (Leadership Conference) or looking at our original product: our newsletter. Ray Culley has been reviewing our products and has been making suggestions and we are listening. After all, he was the head of Marketing for Severstal North America prior to his retirement.
We are going to change our newsletter slightly as we move away from producing the interactive graphics in the body of the newsletter. If you read the newsletter in your email inbox instead of going to our website to read it, you know there are huge gaps where the interactive graphics are and this is distracting to many readers.
So, we are going to provide links to the graphics and the newsletter should be easier for many of you to read and enjoy. I do want comments about the change to see if you prefer it the old way or the new way (no gaps).
Hectic day so I am going to sign off here.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
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.