Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
April 3, 2020
There is going to be a rush of bad news flooding televised and online media. Here at Steel Market Update, we and our parent company The CRU Group will do everything we can to keep readers advised with the most accurate and timely information possible.
This is one of the reasons we are beginning our weekly SMU Community Chat webinar. The webinar will be just 30-45 minutes in length so we do not take a lot of time out of your day. We are going to tape the webinar so those who have conflicts can view it when time permits. We will conduct the webinar on Wednesday mornings at 11 a.m. ET. We will provide a link and password for each webinar, which will be in our article in Tuesday evening’s issue, or we will email it directly to you. You can also request the link and password by email at info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. If you have not used Zoom before, when you click on the link we provide you will be prompted to download their software (free) so you can view the webinar.
The subject for this Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat webinar: CRU Steel Sheet Forecast 2020-2021 with a concentration on how mill cuts in production mesh with CRU’s view of future demand.
I have never been a proponent of daily spot prices for the flat rolled or plate markets. Today, due to the lack of actual transactions, any daily price would be predicated on just a handful of numbers.
We recognize there will be fewer data points as we work on our spot numbers on a weekly basis. We are addressing the number of data points as we work to improve our surveys, expand the number of one-on-one contacts and speak directly to more mills. At SMU our goal is to provide the range of numbers that exist in the spot markets. We then take the high and low of our range, add them together and divide by two to ascertain our average for the week.
It is critically important that those invited to participate in our surveys, email questions or direct phone calls provide as much accurate and timely information as possible. We keep the sources of all the information we collect confidential; we do not share where the data comes from and we never reference an individual or company name.
I listened in on the virtual lunch conducted by Timna Tanners, steel and mining analyst for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, on Friday of this past week. A couple of quick notes from the comments made by active participants in their respective markets: Scrap dealers are having difficulties collecting scrap; one executive told the group they had shut down peddler scales (where they buy scrap from off the street). Prime scrap suppliers are shut down and expected to be down for the remainder of this month (April). There is a lot of resistance to scrap prices going down by $50 per gross ton, which is where the mills are offering to buy right now.
On the same call, a couple of trading companies addressed the group and pegged foreign hot rolled at $345 to $380 per metric ton, FOB Export Port. The expectation is for foreign HRC to go down to $300 per metric ton. The belief by the traders is that domestic (U.S.) HRC prices could bottom around $400 per net ton. Right now, the foreign numbers are not attracting much interest from U.S. steel buyers.
One manufacturer told the group his company had just purchased domestic HRC at sub-$500 per net ton.
If it is time to renew your subscription, or if you are interested in upgrading from Executive to our Premium newsletter, please contact Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012 or by email: 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
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
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.