Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by Brett Linton
June 12, 2015
Just a quick note to let our Premium level members know that earlier this week we put the latest imports by product, port and country on our website. You can review the data by clicking here.
We received notification from the MSCI that their data will be released on Monday of next week. We will have our Apparent Excess analysis probably on Tuesday. We anticipate that our forecast will be off (we had projected flat rolled shipments at 113,000 tons per day which is probably high).
We will conduct our next flat rolled steel market survey beginning on Monday. When in New York City earlier this week for the Steel Success Strategies meeting one of our Premium customers told me that the survey data was exceptional and we were the only place where that particular client could see something that drills down to the level of active buyers and sellers of steel – the real decision makers.
If you have opinions about our products (good or bad) please let us know.
Survey results should be posted on our website on Friday afternoon of next week.
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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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.
Final Thoughts
It’s another week of big headlines for the world writ large – an expanding war in the Middle East, another potentially catastrophic hurricane – and not much going on in the world of steel prices. “Call me Stevie Wonder, I see nothing.” That’s how one service center executive described the current sheet market. There seems to be almost a competition among some of our Community Chat guests and contributors to outdo each other in flowery ways to say, “