Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 19, 2020
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. I hope you got to enjoy some quality time with your kids earlier today.
There has been a call on the Commerce Department to review exports of steel and aluminum from Canada and Mexico. There is a question if exports of these products have “surged” since the two countries were eliminated from Section 232 tariffs.
We did a quick review of the products we cover on a regular basis, and the only product that comes into question is semifinished (slabs), which cannot (or are not) being supported by the domestic steel mills. Please review the following two tables (one Canada and one Mexico) and you can come to your own conclusions:
A reminder, SMU will not host our Wednesday SMU Community Chat webinar this week. Instead, we are deferring to the free CRU Steel Briefing webinar that is scheduled for 10 AM on Tuesday. This webinar will focus on the CRU steel outlook with Chris Houlden (Head of Steel for CRU), Josh Spoores (Principal Analyst), Ryan McKinley (senior analyst) and Anissa Chabib (economist). I think you will find it quite interesting. You can register for the CRU webinar by clicking here.
On Wednesday, July 1, our Community Chat speaker will be Eddie Lehner, President & CEO of Ryerson. We will have registration available later this week.
I am not going to spend time this evening providing information about the 2020 SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference; you can find more details, including the companies that are currently registered, by clicking here.
On Wednesday, July 8, we will take a portion of the time allocated to our SMU Community Chat webinar to give some insights into our conference.
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
And just like that, we’re wrapping up the last SMU newsletter of 2024. We’re closing out our 19th year and looking with wide-eyed anticipation to what 2025 will bring.
Final Thoughts
SMU looks back at stories from Decembers past, one, five, 10, and 100 years ago.
Final Thoughts
It's that time of year again. You know, that time when people wonder if those things are drones in New Jersey or if the aliens are ready to come onto the stage just in time for Inauguration Day. What will that do for steel price volatility? In any case, the SMU team finds itself in Pittsburgh this week.
Final Thoughts
The Community Chat last Wednesday with ITR economist Taylor St. Germain is worth listening to if you couldn’t tune in live. You can find the replay and Taylor’s slide deck here. You can also find SMU reporter Stephanie Ritenbaugh’s writeup of the webinar here. Taylor is Alan Beaulieu’s protégé at ITR. Many of you know Alan from his talks at SMU Steel Summit. I found Taylor’s analysis just as insightful as Alan’s.
Final Thoughts
Cracks have formed in what has been presented as the Biden administration’s united front against Nippon Steel’s play for U.S. Steel. A report from the Financial Times said parts of the administration are at odds on the deal.