Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
January 15, 2016
SMU will begin our mid-January flat rolled steel market analysis beginning at 8 AM on Monday. If you receive an invitation to participate, please take a few moments to click on the link (button) which will take you to SurveyMonkey.com where our questionnaire is housed. Premium level members, as well as those who participate in the process, will receive the results of our analysis in the form of a Power Point on Friday afternoon of this week.
I will be traveling for a portion of this week as we are conducting one of our Steel 101 workshops in Starkville, Mississippi and we will tour the SDI Columbus steel mill as part of our workshop. We will have more workshops later this year for those interested.
Also, we can conduct special training workshops customized for your company using segments of our Steel 101, Managing Price Risk, Sales Training or other programs. If you would like to learn more about custom programs you are welcome to contact me at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone at 800-432-3475.
Registration is still available for our upcoming Leadership Summit Conference which includes the strongest program we have ever put together. You can find details on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com or you are welcome to contact me with any questions you might have: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or 770-596-6268 (cell).
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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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, “