Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
January 13, 2017
A special thank you to the companies who have stepped up early to be sponsors at this year’s Steel Summit Conference: Our Conference Sponsor – Pacesetter as well as our two Corporate Sponsors – Bank of America and Mill Steel. We also have one break sponsor at the moment – Kenwal and we have two coffee sponsors – Magic Coil Products and Alliance Steel.
We do have sponsorship and exhibition space available on a first come, first served basis. Please contact either Ray Culley (Ray.Culley@SteelMarketUpdate.com) or myself at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com if you have an interest in becoming a sponsor or exhibitor at this year’s event in Atlanta at the end of August. Details about sponsorship/exhibition space and about the conference are available on our website. I will be traveling over the next 10 days. I am available by email or on my cell phone: 770-596-6268. If you have a short-term need, question about the website, would like to pay an invoice or become a new customer you can do so through Brett Linton at 706-216-2140 or Brett@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
On the 24th and 25th SMU will conduct our next Steel 101 workshop in Huntsville, Alabama. As part of the workshop we will tour the Nucor Decatur steel mill. I know our team is looking forward to visiting Decatur and interacting with the Nucor team.
We are working on the exact date of the Steel 101 workshop to follow the Huntsville dates. We do know we will be working with North Star BlueScope in Ohio. I am hopeful that we will have the dates ironed out over the next few days (late March-early May time frame).
This will be another busy week in the steel industry. MSCI data is due out this week. We will participate in our monthly galvanized steel conference call with the HARDI wholesalers. Donald Trump will be sworn in as the new President of the United States on Friday. We are also conducting our flat rolled steel market trends analysis beginning on Monday morning at 7:30 AM ET. If you receive an invitation please take a moment to click on the button and provide us your thoughts about the market.
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’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.)