Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
March 25, 2019
After traveling for the past eight days and arriving back in Florida at 1 a.m. this morning, I am back in my office. I expect to be in the office for the next two weeks before traveling to Orlando to speak to the Air Distribution Institute.
Registrations for the 2019 SMU Steel Summit Conference have passed through 200+ executives (not counting our speakers, SMU or CRU people). We have completed one-fifth of our goal to host 1,000 manufacturers, distributors, steel mills, fabricators, processors, trading companies and suppliers to those industries. Please let your industry friends, suppliers and customers know the place to be on Aug. 26-28, 2019, is at the Georgia International Convention Center adjacent to the Atlanta Jackson-Hartsfield International Airport (ATL). There are now 152 days to go before the conference begins. Information about the conference can be found at www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel-Summit
Here are a few of the companies that have registered for the conference over the past few days (* means more than one person): Hubbel Inc.*, California Steel Industries*, Galvasid*, Minmetals, Inc., Reliance Steel & Aluminum*, North Shore Steel*, Ferrostaal Steel GmbH, Honda of America Mfg. Inc.*, Midwest Pipe & Steel*, Kinder Morgan, Inc.
Registrations are also picking up for the next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop, which will be held on May 14-15 in Davenport, Iowa, and will include a tour of the SSAB Iowa facility located about 30 minutes away. Cost for an attendee at one of our Steel 101 workshops is $2,000 (prior to any discounts for SMU/CRU membership or multiple people attending from the same company). The registration fee covers breakfast and lunch on Tuesday and Wednesday, dinner and reception on Tuesday evening, all breaks, transportation to SSAB and back, our 100+ page workbook, access to the PowerPoint presentation slides and three months of the Steel Market Update Premium newsletter and access to our website. It does not include transportation to and from Davenport or the hotel expenses. If you have any questions, please contact us at info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or you can find information and how to register on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel101
I want to say welcome to our newest member companies and to the many companies who have taken advantage of our new pricing structure to upgrade to Premium, Regional or Global memberships. If you or your company would like more details regarding expanding the number of employees that receive our newsletter, you can do so by contacting Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012 or by email at Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, President & CEO
John Packard
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Final thoughts
Cleveland-Cliffs is seeking $750 per short ton (st) for hot-rolled coil. That’s $20/st above where the steelmaker had been. It’s also $30/st above Nucor, which is at $720/st this week. We've seen prices increase incrementally this week. SMU's HR price, for example, stands at $690/st on average, up $5/st from last week. The questions now are whether a number well above $700/st will stick, whether other mills will follow Cliffs, and whether there is enough demand to support higher prices.
Final thoughts
We got a little flack for adjusting our sheet momentum indicators to neutral last week. To be clear, we didn’t adjust them to lower. Part of the reason we moved them to neutral was because there are some unusual cross-currents in the current market. On the news side, you could make a case that there should nowhere to go but up.
Final thoughts
I think all of us know that sometimes courtships go wrong. A misplaced word or deed and soon things can go sideways, and not in the prices sense. Such could be the case with Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel’s play for U.S. Steel.
Final thoughts
We’re starting to see some impacts of the big trade case filed last week against imports of coated flat-rolled steel from 10 nations. Namely, we’ve heard that a range of traders have stopped offering material from Vietnam. An alleged dumping margin of nearly 160% will do that. Especially amid chatter of critical circumstances.
Final thoughts
The phrase “political football” has been tossed around a lot lately. (Pun probably intended.) For the humble journalists at SMU who thought the week following Steel Summit would prove a quiet one… the news cycle had other ideas