The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the 17th consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
The month of November saw a continuation of lower flat rolled steel prices, Momentum and Sentiment as buyers and sellers struggle to find a bottom to what has become an extended slide going back to May 2015. November benchmark hot rolled prices (SMU average) Dropped $15 per ton during the course of the month and […]
As part of your Premium level service, Steel Market Update (SMU) analyzes the service center shipment and inventory data and provides a short term forecast for carbon flat rolled steel shipments, inventories and how they will impact pricing over the next four months. This is done through a proprietary model and the results provided are […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our mid-November flat rolled steel market analysis. We invited slightly less than 600 individuals representing more than 550 companies to participate. Of those responding 44 percent were connected to manufacturing companies, 41 percent with service centers/wholesalers, 7 percent with trading companies, 4 percent with steel mills, 3 percent with […]
Twice per month Steel Market Update (SMU) canvasses buyers and sellers of flat rolled steels on a wide variety of topics. One area we probe is how they feel about their individual company’s ability to be successful in today’s economy (Current Sentiment) as well as what they think business conditions will look like three to […]
Twice per month, Steel Market Update (SMU) conducts an analysis of the flat rolled steel market from the perspective of active buyers and sellers of sheet and coil products. We invite approximately 560 companies to participate through the use of a questionnaire that we have been using since 2008. One of the areas probed is […]
Based on the results of this week’s flat rolled steel market analysis (survey) conducted by Steel Market Update (SMU) the flat rolled steel mills continue to aggressively pursue orders by negotiating spot prices on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and to a slightly lesser extent, Galvalume. As you can see by the graphic shown below, […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the 15th consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the 14th consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
Last week Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our early November flat rolled steel market analysis. During the two step process we asked our respondents to comment on demand trends, both as a group (step one) and then again when broken out into their various market segments (step two). We ask questions related to demand again […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index is continuing its downward trend, even though the Current Index is 4 points higher and the Future segment of the Index is 9 points higher than what we reported during the middle of October. The numbers we follow closely are our 3 month moving averages (3MMA) […]
Twice per month, Steel Market Update (SMU) conducts an analysis of the flat rolled steel market from the perspective of active buyers and sellers of sheet and coil products. We invite approximately 560 companies to participate through the use of a questionnaire that we have been using since 2008. One of the areas probed is […]
Our flat rolled steel survey respondents reported the domestic steel mills as willing to negotiate flat rolled steel prices on virtually every product. The results of our flat rolled steel market analysis conducted throughout this week saw 93 percent of our respondents reporting benchmark hot rolled pricing as being negotiable. This is just about the […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the 13th consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
We made a mistake in our ‘October at a Glance’ table in last Sunday’s newsletter. There was a typo in the SMU cold rolled price, resulting in an error in the average cold rolled price for the month of October. The corrected table is below:
October was the second month in a row where SMU had our Pricing Momentum Indicator pointing toward lower pricing. SMU reports hot rolled coil, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume pricing every Tuesday evening. During October we produced our steel prices indices four times. HRC was reported at $420 per ton the first Tuesday of the […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the 12th consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our mid-October flat rolled steel market analysis. We invited almost 600 companies to participate in our questionnaire which is focused on tracking trends affecting flat rolled steel buyers and users. In our opinion, one of the most valuable pieces of information coming out of our market analysis is the […]
As a Premium level member (or free trial) Steel Market Update provides access to a large portion of the flat rolled steel market survey results we generate twice per month throughout the year. We feel this is a key piece to your Premium membership and we want to make sure that you are taking advantage […]
Business conditions affecting manufactures and flat rolled steel service centers are expected to be more challenging based on the SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index released today. Buyers, sellers and those associated with the flat rolled steel industry were less optimistic than what we had been seeing over the past 27 months. Our Current Sentiment Index, […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are reporting average lead times on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels as being essentially unchanged from what we reported at the beginning of the month. However, when looking at the graphic below you can clearly see lead times have been in decline since the early […]
SMU spoke with a service center executive earlier today. During our conversion this Midwest based service center expressed his opinion regarding the ability to negotiate domestic steel prices in the current market environment when he told us, “I am beginning to think that with a firm bid you could get a better deal domestically than […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the eleventh consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
SMU was disappointed in two key data sets which were released this past week. The first was the MSCI service center shipment and inventories which indicated a weakening economy and a continuation of the high inventory levels at the U.S. distributors. The second was the import license data through the first 15 days of October […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released September shipments and inventories for U.S. distributors. We reported in Thursday evening’s issue that flat rolled steel shipments were weaker than expected while receipts were higher than expected. The combination of the two has driven our Apparent Excess to over 1 million net tons. The SMU Flat Rolled […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the tenth consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
There are two groups of people who get access to a good portion of our flat rolled steel market analysis which is conducted by Steel Market Update twice per month. The two groups are: the people who participate in our research and our Premium level members. We believe our analysis is superior to others which […]
Buyers and sellers of steel continued to be optimistic about business but less so than a few months ago. Since then Sentiment has been trending lower as the strain of ever lower steel prices, issues regarding demand, lower commodity prices and shrinking margins due to high inventory levels are affecting both buyers and sellers. Today […]