This article should go into one of our Steel Buyers Basics series of articles under the heading “Buyer Beware” or, “If it is too Good to be True….” The following article is from one of our trading contacts with whom our SMU Publisher had done business during his trading career. The trader is located in […]
Happy Holidays and welcome back to all of you who celebrated Christmas on Sunday or the beginnings of Hanukkah on Saturday evening. Most of the steel industry appears to still be on Holiday and not working through the New Year festivities. So, it was a fairly quiet day in the Steel Market Update offices around […]
SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index has reversed trend and is rising (getting more optimistic) as we prepare to move into the New Year. On Monday of this week Steel Market Update (SMU) began conducting our mid-December flat rolled steel market trends analysis. We completed our inquiries earlier today (Thursday, December 22, 2016) and we are […]
On Wednesday morning SSAB informed their customers of their intention to increase transaction prices by $50 per ton ($2.50/cwt) “effective immediately on all new non-contract orders.” Later in the day Nucor Plate Mill Group followed the SSAB lead and also increased their spot prices on carbon, alloy and heat-treated plate by $50 per ton. Where […]
Since Tuesday Steel Market Update has received more input regarding the ferrous scrap markets and what we may be looking at regarding negotiations as we head into the month of January. We asked a couple of questions to World Steel Dynamic’s scrap guru, Mike Markley and this is what he told us: Initial thoughts are […]
Earlier this week the U.S. Department of Commerce released new license data on foreign steel imports into the United States for the months of November and December. At this time both months appear poised to come in just under 3.0 million net tons. We are seeing some changes in the trends regarding various products. For […]
This is our final issue before the Christmas and Chanukah (Hanukkah) Holidays which begin this weekend. We will not publish our regular (Executive) newsletter until next Tuesday, December 27th. We will then publish on Thursday before taking time off to celebrate the New Year. We will publish a Premium supplemental issue in the morning (Friday) […]
When it comes to coated steels (galvanized and Galvalume) the domestic steel mills are beginning to collect prices above the “minimum” guidance number of $820 per ton ($41.00/cwt). We are seeing some of the mills, including some of the smaller conversion mills, collecting as much as $840 per ton base pricing plus extras ($42.00/cwt). Hot […]
Late last week the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released service center shipment and inventories data for the United States and Canada. We published both a general recap and a more complex analysis of the data in Thursday and Sunday issues of SMU. Steel Market Update has a proprietary model that we apply against the […]
If you are a steel buyer thinking that this rash of price increase announcements has run its course you may want to re-think the market forces again. One of the major scrap exporters booked a cargo of 80/20 mix to Turkey at $296 per metric ton delivered. They also sold shredded scrap at $301 delivered. […]
The following analysis of the steel markets in China is from Beijing Metal Import & Export Co.,Ltd and is being reproduced by Steel Market Update with permission: Please allow us to update China steel market ( Dec 12 – Dec 18, 2016) as usual as following: In the past week, China steel still stood at […]
A note about the MSCI data and carbon flat rolled inventories. The MSCI reported hot rolled supplies on the floor of the U.S. steel mills as being 2.21 months supply. Cold rolled and coated supplies were under 2.0 months based on MSCI statistics. Cold rolled was reported to be 1.90 months supply and coated at […]
Flat rolled prices continued their march toward $600 per ton hot rolled ($30.00/cwt) and $820 per ton base prices on cold rolled and coated ($41.00/cwt). Based on the steel indices followed by Steel Market Update (SMU), hot rolled, cold rolled and coated all increased their averages compared to one week earlier. SteelBenchmarker did report prices […]
If there are going to be price increase announcements prior to the New Year they will most likely be made this week as opposed to next when most of the steel community is taking time off for the Holidays. If they are not made this week then the expectation has to be the first week […]
Steel buyers and executives associated with the service center industry are reporting to Steel Market Update that end users are accepting that we are in a higher priced flat rolled steel environment and most have placed their first quarter 2017 tons. The expectation is for the market to “pause” here due to the holidays which […]
There are a number of players in the market that are overly concerned (in my opinion) about the restart of the USS Granite City hot strip mill (they are not yet restarting the two idled blast furnaces so they are not adding any new raw steel production into the market) and Mingo Junction (reported to […]
Flat rolled prices rose again this week according to Steel Market Update sources. Our hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume indices increased by $10 to $20 per ton and are very close to maximizing the increase announcements made two weeks ago. At that time the target was clearly set for $600 per ton hot […]
The flat rolled steel service centers are increasing their spot steel prices to their customers. According to our most recent flat rolled steel market trends survey, 90 percent of the distributors responding reported their company as raising spot prices to their end users or to other steel service centers. The 90 percent number is 5 […]
The following report on the Chinese steel markets comes to SMU from Beijing Metal Import & Export Company,Ltd.: Please allow us to update China steel market (Dec 05 – Dec 11, 2016) as usual as following: In past week, China market still very firm! Iron ore, coke and Billets all touched the highest level in […]
Steel Market Update received the following information about the Chinese steel market through one of our trading sources located in Taiwan. Our source is a very active trader in China trading iron ore, steel and equipment with the Chinese steel mills. Here is some new information about the Chinese steel mills: Things are more complicated […]
November import license data is suggesting the month will come in just shy 3.0 million net tons (2.9 million net tons). The U.S. Department of Commerce updated their import monitoring system this afternoon and the early trend for December as for the month to end up around 3.1 million tons. SMU believes the 3.1 million […]
We are hearing from a number of service centers that there have been a couple of mills out there who are not interested in pushing prices again this year. The thought process is split within the steel community to see if the next increase (which the vast majority of the industry believes is coming) will […]
On Friday California Steel Industries (CSI) and later in the day UPI (USS-POSCO Industries) increased base prices on flat rolled products produced by each mill. California Steel was the first mill to move, raising prices on hot rolled by $100 per ton, HRP&O by $100 per ton ($5.00/cwt) and cold rolled and coated by $120 […]
We saw double digit gains in both our indices as well as those of Platts. Benchmark hot rolled rose to $580 per ton average according to the SMU index which is up $30 per ton from one week earlier. By the end of this past week Platts saw their average up $20 per ton to […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted one of our flat rolled steel market trends analysis. We invited just under 600 people to participate in our early December survey and we had 100+ responses. Based on these responses we derive our lead times, negotiations, Sentiment and many other trends that impact the flat rolled steel industry. […]
Our publication of the steel version of Twas the Night Before Christmas has created a competitive stir. We received a second submission of a Christmas tune with the words adjusted to represent a more steel flavor. Here is Santa Claus is Coming to Town: To the tune of Santa Claus is coming to town: You […]
To date the domestic steel mills have announced four flat rolled price increases totaling a minimum of $140 per ton ($7.00/cwt) going back to October 21, 2016. As of today the U.S. steel mills are looking for base price levels on new orders to be placed for the 1st Quarter 2017 to be a minimum […]
SMU Sentiment Index Sees Renewed Optimism The SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index has seen a renewed spurt of optimism based on our latest data. Sentiment, which had been trending lower since the beginning of July based on our three month moving average (3MMA) reversed course and moved higher this week. Our 3MMA for Current Sentiment […]
Over the past four days Steel Market Update has been conducting one of our market trends surveys. The respondents to our queries have provided data indicating slightly longer lead times on hot rolled, cold rolled and Galvalume while galvanized lead times remained steady at mid-November levels. The lead times reported in this article are the […]
According to those participating in this week’s flat rolled steel market trends survey the domestic steel mills are taking a firm stance to price negotiations. Since the first price increase announcements were made in late October the percentage of steel buyers reporting the mills as willing to negotiate prices has dropped from a high of […]