Final Thoughts

August 21, 2019

I have been traveling all day, so I have had limited exposure to the market today. For that matter, as I have mentioned on a couple of recent occasions, I have been almost entirely focused on the 2019 SMU Steel Summit Conference.

So, here are a few comments about the conference for those of you who will be attending…

Dress code: We encourage logo golf shirts as a way of assisting in networking (business casual). Jackets are a personal choice. Ties are discouraged. Women business casual as well (slacks, skirts or dresses are all fine).

Come early: The conference room could very well be standing room only. We have had a tremendous response to our conference this year. We will set a new attendance record.

At 10:30 AM on Monday, the CME Group will hold a Managing Price Risk workshop in the Marriott Hotel located next to the convention center. You can get your badges and conference materials in the south lobby of the Georgia International Convention Center beginning at 10 AM.

The SMU conference program begins at 1 PM ET (sharp) on Monday and 8 AM (sharp) on Tuesday and Wednesday. I will open each day before the first speaker or panel. On Monday, the opening panel is Chris Houlden and Josh Spoores of CRU and me. I will roll out the SMU Service Center Inventories and Shipment Data report, which will be provided to Premium members starting in September.

On Tuesday, the opening speaker is Tom Gibson of the American Iron and Steel Institute. On Wednesday, the opening speaker is Ryan Smith, Global Mill Costing Analyst for CRU, who is followed by Alan Beaulieu of ITR Economics.

Ari Fleischer, former Press Secretary for President Bush, will speak about Politics, Trade and the Economy right after lunch on Wednesday. The program will end around 2:30 PM on Wednesday.

The NexGen Leadership Award will be announced just prior to the steel mill panel late in the afternoon on Tuesday.

We have two networking cocktail parties beginning at 4 PM on Monday (sponsored by Heidtman) and 4 PM on Tuesday (sponsored by Steel Dynamics). Both will last until 5:30 PM, which allows plenty of time to go out to dinner and still have a drink with the crowd at the Marriott Gateway or across the street at the Renaissance.

A note about our Steel 101 workshop in Cincinnati on Oct. 7-8. We had a cancellation, so we have one or two seats left before we are sold out.

One late-breaking item: We have learned that the JSW Baytown EAF has been put on hold. We reached out to John Hritz, CEO of JSW USA, for confirmation and comment, but had not heard back from him as of our deadline for tonight’s issue. Hritz will be one of our speakers at this year’s conference next week.

I look forward to seeing everyone in Atlanta on Monday.

As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.

John Packard, President & CEO