Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 12, 2015
I am back in my office for the first time in about three weeks. Of course, I am only here on Monday and Tuesday before taking a quick trip to Chicago where I will be speaking to a Bank of America group and then the following day I will attend the Association of Steel Distributors regional meeting in Chicago.
I met with Interlake Steamship Company last week while in New York City. The plan for me to travel on one of their 1000′ plus iron ore carriers is still a go and we are reviewing schedules for what I believe will be a July transit from Duluth, Minnesota to Indiana Harbor, Indiana. During the 2 1/2 day transit I will be blogging about my experience about the ship. I will also be “tweeting” real time and you can follow my tweets on Twitter by following “SMUsteel” which is the Steel Market Update Twitter handle.
I am looking for a clever hashtag (#) to use while tweeting from the ship. Some examples I have seen are: #SMUcruise; #CaptainJohn; #anchorsaweigh; #feedthefishes (sea sick joke from my scuba diving days…). If you have any suggestions please feel free to weigh in by sending me an email with your hashtags: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
If you have any questions about running an iron ore carrier, what it is like working about the ship, how they service the steel mills or anything else you would like for me to address while on board the ship, please let me know and I will do my best to get answers for you.
For those of you who have been paying attention to our website, we have been trying to publish articles on a relatively continuous basis. Many of the articles in tonight’s edition are actually available on the website for our members to review anywhere from a few hours to as much as a day prior to being published in the newsletter.
We also are producing a number of blog posts which are not included in the newsletter at all. Take a look at our website blog from time to time and you might be surprised at what is there for anyone to read.
Besides our Twitter account, Steel Market Update also is active on LinkedIn where I host a LinkedIn group called: Steel Market Update. I post questions, blog posts and other articles which you might find interesting. We also have a company account on Facebook.
On Monday we will begin our mid-June flat rolled steel market survey. We will invite over 600 companies to participate and if you are one of the invitees please take a few moments out of your day to click on the link (button now) provided. If you used to get an invitation and for some reason you are no longer receiving one, 1) check your SPAM folder around 8 AM ET or, 2) contact our office at: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com and we will see if we can troubleshoot the issue or get you re-added to the list. The more people who participate the more accurate the data we collect. We do not share any information about those who participate.
On Monday the MSCI will publish their inventory and shipment data for the U.S. service centers. We will have a number of articles about the data for both our Executive members as well as our expanded coverage for Premium members who also will get our Apparent Excess/Deficit results and forecasts for the next four months.
Early bird registration for our September 1 & 2, 2015 Steel Summit Conference has a couple of weeks left. We will be sending out more detailed information about the conference with a link to our brochure early this week. SMU member companies also receive a $100 per person discount.
We also have our next Steel 101 workshop registration open and available. The workshop will be held in Davenport, Iowa and will include a tour of the SSAB mill in Iowa.
If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me in my office: 800-432-3475.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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