Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
September 14, 2016
When speaking to one of the main ferrous scrap analysts in the industry our newsletter was paid a compliment when I asked if the scrap community was aware of our newsletter. I was told, “They do already. Many of them have a lot of confidence in your reports. They refer to it more often then they refer to AMM or SBB.”
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I did some checking regarding what hot rolled offers were being made by foreign entities into the U.S. market. I am finding there are not a lot of offers – some out of Europe and Mexico in the $480-$500 per ton FOB the border/port. Turkey is on holiday this week and we expect there could be more Turkish offers next week. However, as we explained in our World vs. Domestic Price Analysis in tonight’s issue, unless there is a significant freight advantage buyers seem to be leaning foreign.
We heard from one large service center buyer that we needed to watch one of the mini mills as they have been competing with “foreign fighter” numbers on upstream products (cold rolled/coated). I will dig deeper into this in the coming days as it has been my opinion that the spread between HR and CR/coated base prices was a tad high. We may begin to see this moderate in the coming weeks.
If you have information about the market (or just have questions) please feel free to contact me. I can be reached at 800-432-3475 or by email at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
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
Nucor said it is seeking $740 per short ton (st) for hot-rolled (HR) coil this week, up $20/st from last week. USS, meanwhile, is shooting for up $30/st for sheet products in general. (USS did not announce a target price for HR.)
Final Thoughts
We all know the American news cycle moves pretty fast. Viral today, cached tomorrow. So it is with the US presidential election on Tuesday, Nov. 5. People have election fatigue. They've moved on to other things like planning holiday parties, debating Super Bowl hopefuls, or even starting to look forward to our Tampa Steel Conference in February.
Final Thoughts
U.S. Steel plans to increase sheet prices by at least $30 per short ton (st). That's something we haven't seen for a while.
Final Thoughts
SMU's hot-rolled (HR) coil price slipped this week to $685 per short ton (st) on average. We also adjusted our sheet momentum indicators to lower for the first time since July.
Final Thoughts
When a mapmaker constructs a map, it’s always to the contours of the land. Or sea. That is, the mapmaker doesn’t say, “Look, these rocks really don’t belong here, so I’m not going to include them in the harbor map.” Uncharted rocks, sink ships (along with loose lips).