Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
December 24, 2015
This is the last issue of Steel Market Update for this calendar year. We will not publish an issue on Thursday as it is New Year’s Eve and we will all be out celebrating what we hope will be a much stronger New Year. our offices will be open on Wednesday and for the first half of the day on Thursday.
In case it means anything, Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research is forecasting that 2016 will be a better year than 2015 and 2017 will be even better than 2016. So, there is light at the end of this tunnel and we are looking forward to a good 2016.
I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your business, support of our workshops and conferences and spreading the word about our little company. Please keep it up in the New Year as we continue to grow and to bite on the tail of our competition.
We are part of the fabric of the steel industry. An industry which has struggled over the past 25 years and continues to reinvent itself with new steels, consolidation, the closure of outdated mills and the opening of new state of the art facilities. We will have another one coming online by mid-2016, Big River Steel. SMU will host one of our Steel 101 workshops in Memphis, Tennessee probably in October and we will take our attendees to tour Big River Steel.
The steel industry has been good to me and my family and I hope it has done the same for you and yours.
From all of us here at Steel Market Update we want to wish each and every one of your a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!
John Packard, Founder & Publisher, Steel Market Update
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
“We’ll always have Paris,” as the famous line in Casablanca goes. And this month, the global steel industry did as well. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Steel Committee met in the City of Lights earlier this month. There was also a meeting of the Global Forum addressing excess steel capacity.
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.)