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 […]
Steel Market Update conducted our mid-February flat rolled steel market trends analysis over the past four days. The SMU Steel Sentiment Indices are one of a group of proprietary products which are derived from this particular analysis which we conduct twice per month. When reviewing the data we found that our “Current” Sentiment Index dropped […]
Steel Market Update conducted our flat rolled steel market trends analysis this week, a portion of which is dedicated to understanding domestic mill lead times from a group perspective. These lead times shown in the graphic below have nothing to do with the mill lead time sheets produced by the domestic mills. The data shown […]
Hot rolled continues to be the weakest product according to those responding to this week’s flat rolled steel analysis. We found 82 percent of our respondents reporting the domestic mills as willing to negotiate hot rolled pricing. This is much higher than the 54 percent we reported two weeks ago and takes us back to […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the seventh consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the […]
Over the past few weeks Steel Market Update has been reviewing the lead times being published and/or provided to their customers in order to see if there are any significant changes. As a general statement we have found cold rolled and coated steels (galvanized, Galvalume, galvannealed) have extended lead times and are the tightest of […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the sixth consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel and the companies that use the products are becoming more optimistic about both the short term and medium term success for their companies. Earlier this week we began the process of collecting data regarding various trends involved with the flat rolled steel industry. One of the key proprietary […]
Many of you have read that hot rolled is the weakest product and that there is a significant spread between domestic hot rolled base prices and those of cold rolled and galvanized steel. Even with the energy markets being in the so-called “crapper” impacting the hot rolled order books, we are seeing stronger steel mill […]
As we mentioned in our previous article, flat rolled steel mill lead times have moved out by a week on hot rolled and as much as two weeks on cold rolled and galvanized. Galvalume lead times have remained decent but have not extended at this time but, that is to be expected for seasonal reasons. […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the fifth consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. 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 […]
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 […]
One of the important keys to understanding the strength or weakness of the flat rolled market in the United States is to follow the steel mill lead time announcements made to their customers. We can then compare them against prior weeks (and the results of our market trends report which is conducted twice per month) […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the fourth consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. 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 […]
As part of our 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 and inventories then we use our proprietary model to determine if distributor inventories are in Apparent Excess or a Deficit situation. Our forecast also […]
We are seeing a divergence in the normal spread between hot rolled lead times and those of cold rolled and coated products. Normally, we would see HRC lead times at just a couple of weeks less than that of the other “higher value” products. With the demise of the energy segment of the industry that […]
Twice per month, Steel Market Update (SMU) produces our flat rolled steel market analysis. This is done through the use of an online questionnaire which is accessed by an invitation only link. SMU invites just under 600 companies associated with the flat rolled industry with a major focus on manufacturing companies and steel distributors. Our […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are beginning to feel more optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful both in the current market environment as well as three to six months out into the future. Those in the industry seem to be bucking the national pessimistic trend we see on television every night […]
The vast majority of the respondents to our latest flat rolled steel market analysis believe that the domestic steel mills will be able to collect “some” of the latest round of price increases which range from $20 to $30 per ton. In our latest assessment of the flat rolled market, we asked whether the domestic […]
Based on the results of our flat rolled steel market analysis, all of the flat rolled lead times are averaging longer lead times than what we measured one year ago. The SMU steel market questionnaire found the average lead time on hot rolled coil (HRC) was 3.91 weeks, up from a 3.63 week average reported […]
As lead times move out (see article above) we traditionally find the mills less willing to negotiate flat rolled steel prices. We asked those taking our mid-January flat rolled steel market survey to provide us information regarding the willingness of the U.S. steel mills to discount or negotiate steel prices. Hot rolled, which has been […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the third consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. 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 […]
Twice per month Steel Market Update conducts a review of the flat rolled steel markets and one of the items on our questionnaire is how far out are steel mill spot lead times. We also follow lead times as published by the domestic mills to their customers which we share with our readers from time […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the second consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. 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 […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are slowly beginning to feel better about their company’s prospects both now and into the future, according to the results of the Steel Market Update (SMU) flat rolled steel market analysis just completed earlier today. SMU is reporting current market sentiment as being up +1 point to +44. […]
We discussed mill lead times a little earlier this week based on the first two days of data received by our flat rolled steel market analysis (survey). We also reported on what we were seeing from the mills themselves last week when we went through and analyzed a number of the lead times being published […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the first time in 21 weeks. 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 […]
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. We have made a change to our analysis this month by removing the capacity utilization of both the flat rolled […]
Spot lead times have begun to move out according to the lead time sheets shared with customers this week by their domestic mill suppliers. The most strength was seen in cold rolled and coated steels while hot rolled lead times remained stuck at 3-4 weeks in most cases. Steel buyers continue to prognosticate that there […]
On Friday, SMU was speaking with the CEO of a Midwest-based service center who was advising us that, in his opinion, based on the conversations he was having with his mill suppliers, we should expect more flat rolled steel price increases to come. The mills were already asking his company for more and the mills’ […]