Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 18, 2018
My life these days is consumed by our upcoming SMU Steel Summit Conference, our brand-new Steel 201: Introduction to Advanced High Strength & Other New Steels workshop and the next SMU Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop, as well as writing articles and trying to stay on top of the flat rolled and plate steel markets.
We completed our mid-July flat rolled steel market trends analysis and we reported our Sentiment Index, Mill Lead Times and Mill Negotiations results in tonight’s issue. Our Premium level members will get full access to the survey results on Friday in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.
SMU was founded during the month of August 2008, which means we are quickly approaching our 10-year anniversary. Since we started in August, we have heavy renewals for our newsletters during the months of August and September. Now is a good time to review your membership to see if you would like to upgrade to Premium if you are currently an Executive level member. If you have questions, I would love to speak to you. I can be reached at 800-432-3475 or by email at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
SMU Steel Summit Conference hotel status as of July 19, 2018:
Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway Hotel (next to GICC) – SMU room block sold out.
Atlanta Airport Renaissance Gateway Hotel (across from Marriott and GICC) – SMU room block sold out.
Atlanta Airport SpringHill Suites Gateway Hotel (across from GICC) – SMU room block sold out.
Atlanta Airport Marriott Hotel (1 mile away from GICC, shuttle being provided to GICC) – SMU room block has 60 rooms available at $151 per night. You can use this link or call 888-239-1203 and ask for the Steel Market Update room block. If you have any issues or need help, contact Jill Waldman at Jill@SteelMarketUpdate.com
SMU Events App – we are in the process of loading the attendees currently registered, the updated schedule, initial survey question, information about speakers, information about sponsors and exhibitors, etc. I had hoped to get it out yet this week, but I think this will be moved into sometime mid to late next week. This is a very time-consuming process and one person is doing all the work (thank you Brett).
New registrations during the last 24 hours: MiTek Canada, Honda Trading, United Technologies, Anchor Bay Steel, Conklin Metal Industries, PACO Steel & Engineering, Clopay, Taylor Steel, Algoma, Metal Edge Partners, LISSMAC Corporation, EWaste Fund, Sentuo Steel, See Thru Vistas LLC, USS/Posco, XOM Materials GmbH, T.Co Metals LLC, General Electric Appliances…
We are now 38 days away from the launch of the conference. As of this evening (July 19), we have 764 executives registered. If you have not yet registered, you can still do so on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/events/steel-summit or by contacting our office at 772-932-7538. If you have questions, I am available all day on Friday (tomorrow), but I will be out of town most of next week. I can be reached at 800-432-3475 or by email at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
Next event: SMU Steel 201: Introduction to Advanced High Strength & Other New Steels – will be conducted for the first time in conjunction with AK Steel. We will be using the AK Steel Research and Innovation Center (RIC) and touring both the RIC and the Middletown fully integrated steel mill. This will be a unique opportunity for anyone, presidents and CEOs, engineers, purchasing and salespeople, claims people and anyone who wants to know more about AHSS and other new steels. How are they made? What issues exist when processing the steels? How does a company work with a steel mill (or service center) in the development of a new part? You can learn more about the program and register by going to www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/events/steel-201
We are working on hosting another Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop in a mid-November to early-December time frame. More details on this workshop soon.
I want to take a moment to acknowledge my team who have been working hard to get our newsletters published (with quality material), working on the conference, instructors for our workshops, and keeping track of registrations/monies/payables: Diana Packard, Alison LaLonde, Brett Linton, Tim Triplett, Sandy Williams, Peter Wright, Chuck McDaniels, Mario Briccetti, Steve Painter, Jeff LaLonde, as well as Jack Marshall, David Feldstein and Gaurav Chhibbar (futures articles). And a special thank you to Lewis Leibowitz who has been instrumental in keeping us on top of all of the trade issues over the past few years.
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
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, “