Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 2, 2018
Welcome back to those of you in the United States who had the Fourth of July off, but didn’t decide to take a few extra days and extend the holiday. SMU was closed on Tuesday and Wednesday in honor of the Fourth and also to give myself a bit of a break having just been in New York City and London over the past week.
For those of you registered to attend our 8th SMU Steel Summit Conference on Aug. 27-29 in Atlanta, the room blocks have been sold out on the three Gateway hotels next to the convention center. We still have rooms available at the Atlanta Airport Marriott Hotel from which we will be running a shuttle to the Georgia International Convention Center. At our last count, there were 70 rooms left in that room block.
The Atlanta Airport Marriott Hotel is 1.5 miles south of the Georgia International Convention Center, but includes a complimentary shuttle. Click here to book your stay here at $151/night or you may book over the phone at 1-888-239-1203; ask for the Steel Market Update room block.
Here are some of the recent registrations as we bump up against 700 registered attendees for the 2018 conference with 52 days to go: Lapham-Hickey Steel, Honda Trading de Mexico, Norfolk Iron & Metal Co., Luminus Management, CAN-PACK S.A., Mississippi Steel Processing, MISA, Westman Steel Industries, Metal Center News, National Oilwell Varco, Quality Edge, Inc., Worthington Industries and Majestic Steel. If you have any questions about pricing, how to register, hotels or just general questions, I am happy to answer them for you. You can reach me at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone at 800-432-3475.
My meeting in London with CRU management and members of their various teams made me feel very comfortable with the decision I made to sell the company to them. I know it will take some time, but we are already hard at work developing or expanding on projects that I began but needed help to bring to fruition. SMU will continue to be on the cutting edge as we grow our business.
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, President & CEO
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
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.)
Final Thoughts
President-elect Donald Trump will officially retake the White House on Jan. 20. I’ve been getting questions about how his administration’s policies might reshape the steel industry and domestic manufacturing. I covered the tumult and norm busting of Trump's first term: Section 232, Section 301, USMCA - and that's just on the trade policy side of things. It's safe to say that we'll have no shortage of news in 2025 when it comes to trade and tariffs.