Steel Products Prices North America

Comparison Price Indices: There is More Upside to Come

December 20, 2015

We are at the point of the turn and watching how quickly each index reports the change. From Steel Market Update’s view, we saw all flat rolled products pricing rising this past week and we expect most, if not all, of the price increase announcements made to be collected by the domestic steel mills and be reflected in the various indexes by the end of the month.

Hot rolled prices rose on all but SteelBenchmarker (who only reports prices twice per month) as we took our HRC index up $10 per ton to $370 per ton while Platts was up $15 per ton to $380. The average of the three indices is $375 per ton.

Cold rolled prices rose even more dramatically than hot rolled, with SMU numbers up $18 per ton to $500 per ton, SteelBenchmarker up $5 to $507 and, by the end of the week, Platts had taken their CR average up $30 per ton to $525 per ton. The average of the three is $511 per ton.

Galvanized is up $23 per ton with .060” G90 galvanized now at $565 per ton. This puts our average base price at $505 per ton ($25.25/cwt) and rising…

Galvalume was up $3 per ton with .0142” AZ50, Grade 80 now at $806 per ton.

Plate was the one product where we did not see any increase as Platts remained the same at $457.50 per ton and SteelBenchmarker saw plate as down $7 per ton to $442 per ton.