Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
December 4, 2020
On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, I will be an instructor at our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making and Market Fundamentals Workshop. We have a full class with a mixture of steel service centers, manufacturing companies, steel mills, traders, analysts, and suppliers to the industry. I am looking forwarding to discussing supply, demand, inventories, the government, and Black Swan Events. All these factors (and the subcategories underneath them) impact steel prices in different ways.
Stand up and notice: Nucor Tubulars’ price increase late last week was $100 per ton. My opinion is flat rolled spot buyers need to be prepared to pay much higher prices over the next 30 days. The SMU Price Momentum Indicator is pointing to higher prices on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvnaized, Galvalume and plate steels.
On Monday we will begin a new flat rolled and plate market trend survey as we aim to better understand what is happening right now, and what steel buyers and sellers are thinking when it comes to the items that will be impacting business in three to six months. Invitations will go out at 8 a.m. ET. If you would like to be a data provider, please send an email to info@SteelMarketUpdate.com
Tomorrow morning (Monday), we will publish our “Flash Report” to our service center data providers as to how we are seeing inventories and shipments as of November. This information will be key to understanding whether service centers have been able to grow inventories with the restrictions on supply being in place. At the end of this week (or on Monday of next week), we will publish the full report to data providers and another report for our Premium members. If you are a service center or wholesaler handling flat rolled or plate steels, and you would like to become a confidential data provider, please contact Estelle.Tran@crugroup or myself (John@SteelMarketUpdate.com) and we will provide information on what is required. If you are an Executive newsletter subscriber and you would like to know more about what you need to do to become a Premium member, please contact Paige Mayhair at Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone at 724-720-1012.
The Tampa Steel Conference program is shaping up nicely. We have the following speakers committed:
- Leon Topalian, President & CEO, Nucor
- Kevin Dempsey, President & CEO, American Iron & Steel Institute
- Phil Bell, President, Steel Manufacturers Association
- Lewis Leibowitz, The Law Offices of Lewis E. Leibowitz
- Dr. Walter Kemmsies, Chief Economist, The Kemmsies Group
- Timna Tanners, Metals & Mining Analyst, Bank of America
- Josh Spoores, Principal Analyst, CRU
- Rebecca Brewster, President & CEO, American Trucking Research Institute
- Derek Langston, Head of Research, SSY
- Paul Anderson, President, Port Tampa Bay
- John Packard, President & CEO, Steel Market Update
We will have a full day – including a special networking event – on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021. This is the 32nd annual Tampa Steel Conference and Steel Market Update is honored to be working with Port Tampa Bay to make this virtual event a success.
Costs to attend the Tampa Steel Conference are quite reasonable at $150 per person for someone who is not an SMU/CRU member company, or someone who has attended a prior Tampa Steel Conference. Previous attendees get a 50 percent discount ($75 per person) and SMU/CRU members get a $25 per person discount and an additional $25 if they register more than one person to attend. You can find more details by clicking here or you can send an email to events@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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