The Institute of Supply Management Purchasing Managers Index, (PMI) registered 50.9 percent in June, a decrease of 1.9 percentage points from May’s reading of 49.0 percent, but the three month moving average (3MMA) declined for the third straight month to 50.2 percent. The JPMorgan Global Manufacturing PMI indicated a sixth consecutive month of expansion in June […]
Over the past decade more steel indices have emerged in the steel commodities markets. All serve the same objective of providing pricing benchmarks for buyers and sellers of steel – and, in recent years, for the financial settlement of derivative contracts. As the number of indices grew so did the questions surrounding the validity of […]
One of the major steel related news stories for the month of July was the OCTG dumping suits filed by 9 U.S. producers. Nine oil country tubular goods (OCTG) producers – U.S. Steel, Maverick Tube Corp., Boomerang Tube, Energex Tube (division of JMC Steel Group), Northwest Pipe Co., Tejas Tubular Products, TMK IPSCO, Vallourec Star, […]
Steel Market Update next workshop will be our Steel 101: Introduction to Steelmaking & Market Fundamentals. The workshop will be held in Blytheville, Arkansas on October 8th and 9th and will include a tour of the Nucor Hickman flat rolled mini-mill. The workshop is intended for those who are relatively new to the industry, those who would […]
From Steel Market Update perspective there are a number of keys to watch during the month of August: • Scrap prices: Shredded scrap prices are forecast to be down $10-$20 per gross ton due to oversupply. Other scrap grades such as cut grades and prime are forecast to be sideways to down $5 per […]
By John Packard Have flat rolled steel prices reached their peak? We captured mixed results in this week’s analysis of the indices followed by Steel Market Update. Platts Midwest hot rolled and cold rolled coils both shot up $12.50 per ton compared to where we had them one week ago. Steel Orbis numbers did not […]
By John Packard On Saturday, Upstate Shredding held an open house for their new Port of Albany, New York recycling and shipping facility. What makes this one special is that the scrap operation sits on water which will provide the company with access to barge shipments to customers such as Nucor as well as ocean […]
By John Packard Steel Market Update wants to welcome our newest member to our team: Ryan Packard. Ryan is joining us after completion of his Masters at McGill and moving to Chicago. I don’t expect my son to take over the company anytime soon as his expertise is as a percussionist and Chicago is where […]
Written by: John Packard and the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) The U.S. Department of Commerce released June export data on Tuesday evening. We have two analyses of the data. First, we are reproducing the AIIS press release and then after their release we have our quick analysis of hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized […]
Imports of semi finished, and hot worked steel imports through July 2013 Imports of the combined tonnage of billets, blooms and slabs have been trending down for 12 months as have also the combined imports plate and sheet. Total long products have been trending up for all of 2013. These conclusions are based on a […]
Written by: John Packard In what might be perceived to be a positive for the domestic steel industry, the steel buyers and sellers responding to the latest SMU steel market survey believe the domestic mills have at least 30 days if not longer before the current price cycle is broken. We asked those responding to […]
We have 5 spots left open in our next Steel 101 workshop which will be held in Blytheville, Arkansas on October 8th and 9th. The workshop includes a tour of the Nucor Hickman EAF and rolling mill. Information about the workshop is on our website or you are welcome to contact our office: 800-432-3475. We […]
Every so often it is interesting to just review the comments made to Steel Market Update (SMU) during our steel market survey. Occasionally we can catch a raw gem. In the comment below a large Midwest based service center discusses their service center spot business (supplying steel from one service center to another): “Lean […]
Written by: John Packard Service centers continue to raise spot flat rolled prices to their end customers, according to our most recent steel market survey. Seventy seven (77) percent of the service centers responding to our early August questionnaire advised their company as raising prices compared to two weeks ago. The remaining distributors reported keeping […]
SMU doesn’t normally publish obituaries. I found the one about Berthod Beitz former Chairman of Krupp Steel especially touching and important to acknowledge. For the younger generation the idea of death camps and the world at war must be quite foreign. Even those of us born after World War II have only faded memories of […]
Written by Sandy Williams German industrialist, Berthold Beitz, the “grand old man of steel,” died on July 30 at 99 years of age. Beitz turned the privately run Krupp Steel company into a publically traded corporation that is now ThyssenKrupp Steel, but he is also credited for saving hundreds of Jews during World War II. […]
Written by: Peter Wright Once a quarter the Federal Reserve surveys the senior loan officers of 73 domestic banks and 22 U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks – questions cover changes in the standards and terms of the banks’ lending and the state of business and household demand for loans. The following is an […]
Written by: Diana Packard For the week ending August 3, 2013, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,888,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.9 percent increase over the previous week and a 1.8 increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Participants in the July ISM Steel Buyers Survey reported lean inventories and lower than desired orders for July. Buyers reported tons on hand covered shipping levels for 2 months or less. Inventory levels were considered Right by 77.8 percent of those surveyed and Too High by 37.2 percent with plans to […]
Written by Sandy Williams The Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) has asked U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman to protect domestic steel plate from an onslaught of imports from Europe. “We urge USTR to undertake a diplomatic initiative targeted at the European countries that are rapidly increasing their shipments of CTL plate and other products to the […]
Written by: John Packard Chicago area scrap deals were lower on shred and basically sideways on #1 HMS and #1 Busheling according to SMU sources as of today. #1 heavy melt was put at $351-$355 per gross ton. Shredded Scrap was put at $366 per gross ton. #1 Busheling was reported to be sideways […]
Written by: John Packard SMU thought our readers might be interested in what the domestic mills are “publishing” as lead times as of Monday of this week for new orders placed at that time. We have a number of mill lead times for you to review. AK Steel has informed their customers that their Middletown […]
Written by: John Packard Are we seeing early signs of prices weakening? The combination of our survey, which began on Thursday of last week and concluded earlier today, and our channel checks with both manufacturing and distributors produced a wider range in pricing than we had been seeing in recent weeks. Is this the beginning […]
Written by: John Packard Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index was measured at +38 based on the results of our mid-August review of the flat rolled steel market. Sentiment continues to be at the peak of optimism displayed during calendar year 2013. Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to respond in […]
Written by: John Packard Bucket Deals are Killing Regional Wholesalers and Small Distributors Somewhere along the line the idea of allowing flexible tonnage purchases on month to month tonnages originally pegged for spot purchases to go into “bucket deals” has been killing some of the smaller spot distributors and wholesalers. The worst time is now […]
Written by: John Packard Steel Market Update has been conducting our twice monthly steel surveys for approximately five years now. When we started, we chose people and companies with whom we trusted and had worked with knowing we could depend on the quality of the information gathered. Having worked within the industry for over 30 […]
According to Preliminary Census Data, June imports into the United States were approximately 14 percent lower than what was reported for May 2013. The preliminary data has total imports at 2,442,082 net tons down from 2,838,293 tons in May. The June tonnage is below both the 3-month and 12-month moving averages. Compared to June 2012 […]
We are still a couple weeks away from receiving MSCI inventory and shipment data for the month of December. Even so, our most recent steel market survey should provide some insights into what we may see in the MSCI data when it is released later this month. According to those service centers responding to our […]
When reviewing our flat rolled price assessments it is important to note that our opinion is the range is more important than the average. Our index is nothing more than the average of our high and low. Our SMU Price Momentum Indicator which is currently at “Lower” provides the trend we see in our price […]
I remember back to August 2008 when I first started selling memberships to the Steel Market Update newsletter – one of my good steel customers from my Winner Steel and trading company days wondered out loud when he told me he didn’t know what I would be writing about in 30 days (in other words […]