Steel market chatter this week

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Steel prices have been inflecting upwards. How do you expect prices to trend over the next three months?

“We are expecting this to be another much ballyhooed ‘dead-cat bounce.’ In other words, it’ll peak here soon and then drift lower. We aren’t putting a ton of credence behind these upcoming outages.”

“Flat with some bounce up and down. Economy and elections are too volatile.”

“I don’t expect much movement up or down – demand average at best and no one is rushing to stock up.”

“Relatively flat…”

“Could go either way. Logic says they should go up, but I am not optimistic as demand is just not there and autumn is near.”

“I think prices bounce along current levels for a while, near term the outages may lead to a bit more price increases, but I would expect buyers to push back quickly.”

“I do expect them to rise but I don’t think it will rise quickly.  Nothing pushing the market right now.”

“Sideways to soft up for coil, sideways to down for plate.”

“Very slight upward movement.”

“I see small steady increases through early October.”

“Yes, because the bottom has been found.”

“Down, slowing economy.”

Is demand improving, declining or stable?

“Demand is OK on contract and is trending down on spot as buyers are still very cautious to not build inventory.”

“Stable at best.  Economy sucks, interest rates are high, and it is an unstable presidential election year.”

“Stable but lower then last year.”

“Stable soft, with a soft lean.”

“Stable, but down from what we expected for the year.”

“Declining, slowing economy, auto inventories growing, and plant shutdowns.”

“Demand seems very soft…”

Is inventory moving faster or slower than this time last year?

“Slower… soft demand and declining prices.”

“Slower based off of prices starting to rebound and no one wanting to invest.”

“Slower with less demand.”

“A bit slower.”

“Slower.”

“Inventory is moving about the same for us, but we’ve kept our levels lower on purpose.”

“About the same.”

“Slightly faster.”

Are imports more attractive than domestic material?

“No, too long to wait to hedge.”

“Not attractive, our customers require domestic.”

“Not really, a mix of lead time, spread, and unstable domestic demand.”

“Imports not attractive.”

“Domestic supply and pricing is preferred.”

“They are not more attractive based on current domestic prices and the uncertainty on what the future holds.”

“Less attractive, market is too unstable.”

“I think import pricing would be comparable, especially with domestics trying to raise things a bit, but the lead times are certainly risky.”

“Not yet for HRC but it could come soon as Europe continues to decline. Euro a bit too strong, though.”

“Yes, imports are lower on galv, roughly 10% below domestic supply chain.”

“Imports are always less expensive.”

What’s something that’s going on in the market that nobody is talking about?

“In normal seasonality trends, the market tends to bottom in October or November. There is no reason August should be projected as the bottom of the market for this year.”

“We’re all talking about the outages and AHMSA is back in the headlines. But from an M&A standpoint, I’m still curious on Evraz NA as well as on the service center side (which has been oddly quiet as of late).”

“Demonstrations that will plague this country over the next five months…”

“Do the outages actually mean anything?”

“Been quiet on US Steel/Nippon deal.”