Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
March 6, 2017
Just to make sure that everyone saw this: SMU received a note from a Nucor spokesperson that their Louisiana DRI facility would be back up later this week, “Repairs at our Louisiana DRI plant are ahead of schedule and we plan to restart the plant this week. An equipment failure resulted in the need to temporarily suspend operations. This temporary suspension in operations has not impacted production at any of Nucor’s steel mills, nor has it impacted our 180 teammates who work at the DRI plant.”
I am thinking about bringing in a high-power, well known speaker to close our conference this year. It would be someone that most of the attendees have seen on TV as a financial or political analyst (or both). I would like to get some feedback from those who will be attending our SMU Steel Summit Conference this year, or who are considering attending as I would like to know if a well-known TV personality would help convince you to attend (and to remain for the entire conference)? You can provide me feedback by sending me an email at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. Also, if you have a TV financial, political or media personality you think would be a good fit for our conference please let me know.
I am off to New Orleans first thing Wednesday morning. I am attending the ASD and FMA conferences. If you are going to be there and would like a few minutes to chat, have lunch or dinner, please send me an email or text.
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, “