Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
October 16, 2015
We will begin our next flat rolled steel market analysis with an invitation to participate in our questionnaire going out at 8 AM on Monday morning. If you receive an invite please take a few minutes to click on the link and complete the questionnaire.
Steel Market Update will be moving our headquarters over the next couple of weeks. We anticipate being set up and operating out of our new offices in Hobe Sound, Florida by November 1st. We do not expect any issues with any of our publications, workshops, conferences or our website as we make the transition further south. We will be in our Georgia offices all this week and I am not scheduled to travel anywhere this week so I can be reached at 800-432-3475 or by email at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com should you have any questions or just want to chat.
My next speaking engagement is at the Cowen & Company conference which will be held in New York City on November 10th and 11th. Then I will be speaking at the Steel Meeting at the HARDI convention which will be in Orlando, Florida on December 5-8th.
Our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop will be held in Starkville, Mississippi on January 19-20, 2016 and will include a tour of the SDI Columbus steel mill. Registration is open for the January program. If you have any questions please contact us in our office: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or 800-432-3475.
In March we will host our first Leadership Conference at PGA National Golf Club & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The dates are March 7-9th and more details will be coming out soon.
The dates for next year’s Steel Summit Conference will be August 30-31, 2016 and it will be in Atlanta, Georgia. Mark your calendars now as we are expecting another great crowd of steel people.
Early reports are saying ferrous scrap prices will move sideways to slightly lower ($0-$20) once we get into November. October prices were down $50 to $60 per gross ton.
We have three steel plants who are either in the process of being shut down (Fairfield except for coating line) or have received WARN notices: USS Granite City and AK Steel Ashland. The Granite City and Ashland plants are not for sure yet. US Steel gave the Granite City WARN notices earlier this year and then did not follow through on them. Restriction of supply is one possible way of getting prices to reverse direction. We will continue to watch the developments as they occur.
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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The whole SMU team is packing up our laptops and our SMU polos/cardigans, loading up the PowerPoint slides, and preparing to make the trek down to Florida for the Tampa Steel Conference. There will be plenty to talk about!
Final Thoughts
From one group of folks, I’ve heard that Trump might not wait until Feb. 1 – the date he threatened on to place tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico. They say he could act as soon as Friday. And then there are those who don’t think anything will happen before April 1. That’s the deadline for Commerce, Treasury, and USTR to submit key reports on “America First Trade Policy” to President Trump.
Final Thoughts
Trump made a clarification in a speech on Monday. Previously, he had declared the word “tariff” the most beautiful word in the dictionary. No longer.
Final Thoughts
President Donald Trump on Sunday hammered Colombia with 25% tariffs and threatened to increase them to 50%. Trump in a post on Truth Social said he took the action not because of a trade dispute but because the South American nation had refused to accept planes carrying deported immigrants. The president also cited "national security" concerns, just as he did to justify 25% Section 232 tariffs on steel in his first term. Even the 50% threat echoes his first term. Turkish steel, like that of most nations, was assessed a 25% tariff in March 2018. Trump doubled Turkey's tariff to 50% via a tweet in August of that year over a matter unrelated to steel.