Steel Products Prices North America

Comparison Price Indices: Double Digit Drops

September 17, 2016

Flat rolled steel prices continued to fall by double digits this past week on all of the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. As the pace of the slide has accelerated the spread between the indexes have increased. We have seen this same phenomena in the past which is caused by the differences in collection and analysis techniques used by the various indexes.

Benchmark hot rolled slip $35 per ton on the SMU index average and we are now at $525 per ton ($26.25/cwt), Platts dropped $20 per ton during the course of the week and ended the week at $540 per ton ($27.00/cwt). SteelBenchmarker, which only produces prices twice per month, dropped $21 per ton to $577 per ton ($28.85/cwt). The average of the three indexes on HRC is $547 per ton.

Cold rolled averages were also lower with SMU showing the product as being $765 per ton or $25 per ton less expensive than one week ago, SteelBenchmarker at $775 per ton was down $19 per ton and Platts took their CRC numbers down by $10 per ton to $765 per ton over the course of this past week. The average of the three indexes is $768 per ton.

Galvanized was reported by SMU as being $810 per ton ($40.50/cwt) for .060″ G90. This is $25 per ton lower than one week ago.

Galvalume .0142″ AZ50, Grade 80 was also down this past week as our index has the product at $1049 per ton ($52.45/cwt) which is $28 per ton lower than one week ago.

Plate prices have been dropping on the Platts index which has the product at $535 per ton ($26.75/cwt) which is $25 per ton lower than the previous week. SteelBenchmarker, on the other hand, has the product up $3 per ton to $586 per ton ($29.30/cwt). There is a $51 per ton variance between the two indexes so we will leave it to the buyers to discern which index is more accurate from your perspective.

We apologize for not displaying our Comparison Price Indices table this week. The person in our office responsible for making the graphics for this report is on a well deserved vacation and was unable to put the last minute changes into the table.

FOB Points for each index:

SMU: Domestic Mill, East of the Rockies.
SteelBenchmarker: Domestic Mill, East of the Mississippi.
Platts: Northern Indiana Domestic Mill.