Futures: Will Holding Pattern in HR Tags Stick Out Summer Lull?

A short week with the July 4^th Holiday kind of sums up recent HR futures activity. Subdued spot activity and not much change from the previous weeks’ indexes leaves the market time to roll exposures.

The recent price increases appear to have given spot prices a pause. Heading into the cyclical summer soft spot, mills are trying to hold the line on prices. Some of the indexes reflect some price increases. (Spot Index $880/ST roughly.) The jury is still out as to whether there is enough demand to move prices higher on the back of soft manufacturing data. But given fairly tight inventory control at the service center level, any unexpected outages could be supportive of the current push to move the spot index prices higher, especially for certain regions and grades. The latest front month settlement values Jul’23 HR at $895/ST, up slightly from the latest  average of HR indexes. However,  lower global HR prices point to strong import competition and an increase in selling interest from importers.