Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 19, 2019
Tomorrow we will begin our mid-July flat rolled and plate steel market trends analysis. This means we will have more information regarding pricing (Tuesday), lead times and negotiations (Thursday) and Sentiment and service center spot (Thursday or Sunday) along with other information developed through our questionnaire. If you would like to be included as a data/opinion provider, please contact me
Nine business days left for you to nominate a young person from your company for the 2019 SMU NexGen Leadership Award. The deadline is by the end of business on August 1, 2019. The benefits of receiving this award are huge for the person who ultimately wins. A mentorship day with SDI CEO Mark Millett, free registration for a future (2019 or 2020) Steel 101 or Steel 201 workshop, free registration to the SMU Steel Summit Conference (2019 and 2020), physical award for their work place, cocktail party at this year’s conference, video of them getting the award and more. Go to www.SMUAward.com for more details or contact me at 800-432-3475 or on my email: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
Registrations continue for the 2019 SMU Steel Summit Conference. We are closing in on 900 registered attendees. Here are some of the latest companies to register executives: Steel and Pipe Supply, North American Stamping Group, PPG, J.P. Morgan, Nucor, Steel Dynamics, LSI Industries, AOC Metal Works and Nippon Steel Trading Americas. For more information about the conference and to register click here.
A special thank you to Metal Miner for allowing us to reprint the interview they did with CRU Analyst Josh Spoores. Josh will be one of our speakers opening the conference on Monday, August 26 at 1 PM.
For the first time at a SMU Steel Summit Conference I will be speaking about a couple of our proprietary indices, including our Service Center Inventories Indices on flat rolled and plate. If you are not a data provider, you will want to be there to learn more about how we got to here and where we will be going with our index. The index will be shared with PREMIUM level members beginning in September.
Steel 101 registrations are still open for the October 8-9 workshop in Cincinnati, Ohio with a tour of the Nucor Gallatin steel mill. Details can be found at www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/events/steel101
Many of you will be coming up for renewal for our newsletter. Please contact Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012 or by email: Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com and she can discuss upgrading to Premium or expanding to a Regional or Global arrangement where you can share the newsletter with all the people in your company if you so choose. Paige can also help with your renewal for the existing level (note: we no longer have a single person level. We want you to open-up more people to our newsletter). See Paige for details.
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
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.