Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 28, 2019
This week I will be working with steel buyers (and steel mills) to see how the price increase on flat rolled is being received. As is normal when lead times are short and price announcements are made, many mills held pricing through the end of last week for those who had outstanding quotes or needed to place orders to beat the increase. With the Fourth of July Holiday week starting on Monday, we will see how strong the bookings were last week and how firm the sales reps have been told to be when negotiating orders this week.
I anticipate there could be further price erosion based on the orders taken late last week. We are aware of hot rolled prices as low as $460 per ton ($23.00/cwt) being taken on large orders. There could be a very wide spread in the numbers once they come out on Tuesday evening. I will begin collecting pricing data on Monday afternoon.
We are passing through 750 executives registered for the 2019 SMU Steel Summit Conference, which will be held in Atlanta on Aug. 26-28. We continue to be on track to exceed the 912 executives we reached during last year’s conference. Our conference has become the premier steel conference in North America for many reasons:
Networking: Not only will we have the largest gathering of executives at any flat rolled/plate focused conference, the attendees are decision-makers when it comes to buying and selling steel and other products.
Content: We have a tremendous agenda chock full of quality speakers who will talk about steel prices, new capacities coming online, the economy, politics, trade, transportation, raw materials, mill cost to produce steel, managing price risk, and there will be a number of forecasts. SMU/CRU will also roll out our new Service Center Inventories Index for the first time.
Convenient Location: The Georgia International Convention Center is located right next to the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport (ATL) and can be reached via a free SkyTrain. It will take no more than 10 minutes from the time you exit your plane until you are at the door of the convention center.
Reasonable Cost: At $1,375, ours is one of the lowest, if not the lowest, cost for a conference of this size and scope. When you add in the discounts for SMU/CRU members and multiple attendees, it becomes a bargain. If you have been nominated for the SMU NexGen Leadership Award, the ticket drops to $675. The hotels are reasonably priced and conveniently located.
On top of all the above, you will thoroughly enjoy yourself (i.e. you will have fun).
Click on this link, or go to www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel-Summit to register. If you are having any issues registering, please contact Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012 or by email at Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com. You can also get assistance during the holidays by contacting Events@SteelMarketUpdate.com and the London office will help you.
We picked up more nominations late last week for the 2019 SMU NexGen Leadership Award, which will be presented at our conference at the end of August. You company should look at nominating one of your deserving young people (35 years of age or younger). A nomination will be viewed in a positive way by your employees and it will reflect well on your company. Go to www.SMUAward.com for more details and how to nominate someone. You can also reach out to Events@SteelMarketUpdate.com, or you are welcome to call me at 800-432-3475 should you have any questions.
This week is a holiday week and Steel Market Update will publish again on Tuesday, July 2, and then we will not publish again until Tuesday, July 9.
We will conduct our next flat rolled steel market trends analysis (survey) the week of July 8.
The SMU Service Center Inventories Index on flat rolled and plate steel inventories will begin on Monday, July 1. We will have our Flash Report out to data providers on Wednesday, July 10, and the final report should be out on July 16. If you are a service center and would like to participate in the inventories survey, please contact us at info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or give me a call at 800-432-3475. As I mentioned above, we will unveil the SMU Service Center Inventories Index at the 2019 SMU Steel Summit Conference during the opening program on Monday, Aug. 26 at 1 PM.
I want to welcome our newest members to the Steel Market Update family. I want to let you know we encourage interaction between your company and SMU. We want questions and suggestions and will do our best to respond to any inquiries you might have. Many of our articles are prompted by questions or suggestions from our readers. We can be reached at info@SteelMarketUpdate.com
If you would like information about how to renew, upgrade or become a subscriber to SMU, please contact 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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