For the week ending July 25, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,740,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.7 percent decrease over the previous week and a 9.1 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.8 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices saw little movement this past week in benchmark hot rolled but, we did see some cracks in the “shadow” effect as the spreads between CRU and the other indexes started to widen. These small gyrations in the numbers in any one week may be due to what is being collected and […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has discussed with our readers, on many occasions, that there are three kinds of numbers coming out of the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding steel imports on a monthly basis. First, there are the license data requests which are published every Tuesday evening after 5 PM ET. License data is the […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
A unfair trade case was filed by US pipe and tube producers on Tuesday against makers and exporters of heavy-walled rectangular steel pipes and tubes from South Korea, Mexico and Turkey. The product in question is commonly called “structural tubing” and is used in construction, transportation and farm applications. The alleged dumping margins filed by […]
Global steel production in 12 months through June totaled 1.622 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.2 billion tonnes. Capacity utilization on a three month moving average, (3MMA) basis was 71.6 percent, down from 72 percent in three months through May. China accounted for 50.8 percent of global production in June. Asia as a whole, […]
We found a little bit of weakening in our price ranges on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized while Galvalume was slightly higher. We do not attribute any change in momentum with the numbers. We are of the opinion that the changes were related to the collection of data this week (with more emphasis on […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated July license data as of 5 PM today (Tuesday, July 21st). At the moment, the license data is “suggesting” that July imports will exceed those of June (June had 22 days and July has 23 days) by 100,000 to 200,000 tons. The daily license request rate for July is […]
This piece, written by Peter Wright, combines our own data analysis with recently published opinions about the iron ore, metallurgical coal and zinc markets that we find credible. Iron Ore: The Platts IODEX of 62% Fe delivered North China recovered to $61.25 per dry metric ton (dmt) on May 22nd but by July 10th had […]
For the week ending July 18, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,753,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.7 percent increase over the previous week but a 8.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.3 percent, up […]
Stability is perhaps the most frightening for steel buyers and sellers alike. At least there is an expectation of good times (or bad) when prices are moving on a weekly basis in one direction or the other. What we have seen since the middle of May is a slight “jiggle” as prices bounce up and […]
The U.S. International Trade Commission voted today to continue their investigation of coated products (corrosion-resistant) which are primarily focused on hot dipped galvanized and Galvalume steels from China, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Italy. It was a foregone conclusion that the ITC would find enough of a threat for “material injury” to continue the investigation. […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: No Grexit worries are going to […]
Not too hot (prices aren’t rising at a breakneck pace – or at all for that matter), not too cold (and they aren’t dropping either – at least not yet), just about right (Goldilocks pricing). Of course this perspective will vary depending on your view of the market and your ability to pass through the […]
Normally, when the market is starting to heat up and the first of the domestic steel mills announces a price increase, it is matter of a day or two before the others either follow the lead or make a new announcement at a level higher or lower than the first announcement made. The April and […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released the latest foreign steel import license data late this afternoon. The license data is suggesting that July steel imports will be higher than the 3.1 million net tons suggested by today’s adjustment to June’s license data. This is not a positive for the steel market. Two items of interest […]
For the week ending July 11, 2015, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,740,000 net tons of raw steel, a 3.3 percent increase over the previous week but a 9.1 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.8 percent, up […]
Up, down and sideways is how to describe the various flat rolled price indexes this past week. Hot rolled prices averaged $465, down $1 from the week prior. However, the SMU index was up $5 per ton to $470, CRU was down $7 per ton to $461 and Platts remained stationary at $465 per ton […]
Net imports equals imports minus exports. We regard this as an important look at the overall trade picture and its effect on demand at the mill level. Figure 1 shows that net sheet product imports on a three month moving average (3MMA) basis in May, continue to be more than double that which existed before […]
The following article on Asian ferrous scrap markets is written by Damon Sun of Daido International: Fear, insecurity, confusion, vulnerability… these are the psychological trauma resulting from the whipsaw in the China stock markets. Publicly listed Chinese stocks have pledged their companies stock as collateral for financing. As the stock market sharply declined, banks started […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of May 2015 was 9,069,541 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. May supply […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
A month ago one of our dealer sources echoed the views of many in the ferrous scrap business, he expected nothing worse than a sideways (no change) market for July scrap prices. He pointed to stronger demand at the steel mills and continued weak collection of obsolete scrap grades. We will hear more from him […]
In the first five months of this year bulk scrap exports were 5,724,456 tonnes for an annual rate of 13,741,000 tonnes, down by 9.3 percent from the first five months of last year. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages for 2015 and on the twelve month monthly average […]
AIIS, Falls Church, VA. July 9, 2015. Steel exports increased 3 percent from April to May, though they remained well below the level of a year ago. The United States shipped 870,099 net tons of steel in May, 16 percent less than the May 2014 total. Most of the growth resulted from a more than […]
The domestic steel mills are determined to keep pricing momentum on their side as US Steel became the first mill to announce a new round of price increases on flat rolled products. The US Steel announcement, which was made via the use of an internal memo to their sales group leaked to the industry, advises […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been struggling to keep momentum and move higher. We have not yet seen full compliance with the second price increase and now we have a new round of price increases beginning with the $40 per ton announced by US Steel this morning. We did see some minor changes to hot […]
Spot iron ore prices have been tumbling as the Chinese steel industry slows and the Big Three iron ore mining companies continue to dig up more and more ore. According to The Steel Index (TSI) iron ore spot prices for 62% Fe fines dropped below $50/dmt for the first time since the middle of April […]
Since SMU did not publish on Sunday evening we wanted to get the information regarding flat rolled steel price indices from last week. We saw prices tighten up amongst the various indexes which reported pricing last week (SMU, CRU and Platts). However, as with the week before, price momentum was flat going into the 4th […]
Final Census Data for May foreign steel imports was released by the U.S. Department of Commerce (US DOC) earlier today. Imports for May were 107,000 net tons lower than the month of April. The May 2015 number is 600,000 net tons lower than the 4,033,351 net tons received during the month of May 2014. June […]