Steel Market Update has been reporting flat rolled steel service centers had reached the point of “capitulation” earlier this month. History has shown that when the service centers reach the point of capitulation they tend to support flat rolled steel price increases being made by the domestic steel industry. Essentially, the steel distributors are attempting […]
Steel Market Update scrap sources are advising us to expect ferrous scrap prices have bottomed and will increase once the November negotiations get underway next week with the domestic steel mills. We are hearing scrap prices should increase by a minimum of $10 per gross ton and some items could go up by as much […]
Last week the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) reported September shipments and inventories for the U.S. flat rolled steel distributors. We have already produced a couple of articles for our Executive and Premium level members regarding the overall numbers. Today we are analyzing the MSCI data using our Service Center Inventories Apparent Excess/Deficit model and […]
We have an article about this in tonight’s newsletter as well but I want to make sure that everyone is aware that our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals Workshop is being held in Huntsville, Alabama on January 24 & 25, 2017. As part of this workshop we will tour the […]
On Friday morning US Steel became the first domestic steel producer to announce a flat rolled steel price increase. Later in the day Nucor and California Steel Industries (CSI) followed with similar announcements. SMU expects other steel mills to follow with announcements of their own as this new week gets underway. On October 21, 2016 […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) made two market adjustments on Friday afternoon (Friday, October 21st). We have adjusted the range on our hot rolled index to $440 per ton on the low end up to $500 per ton on the high side. Our average is now $470 per ton ($23.50.cwt). This is $10 per ton lower […]
Flat rolled steel prices have broken through some key barriers over the past couple of weeks as benchmark hot rolled crashed through $500 per ton and cold rolled has now broken through $700 per ton. It was not just the Steel Market Update steel index average moving lower, we saw Platts take their steel index […]
One of our key Asian steel and commodity trading sources has provided SMU with details about the Chinese steel markets as well as what is happening in Asia,including comments about the circumvention suit which involves Vietnam: Export offers from China have basically risen by USD20/mt in the past two weeks, and it has become a […]
On Friday I got a number of messages from people wanting to know how they can get information about a price increase announcement being made as soon as it comes out (or shortly thereafter). Right now what I try to do when announcements come out is to put it out on my Twitter account (@SMUSteel) […]
We saw a single data point “bounce” this week in both the Current and Future SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Indexes. Does it mean anything significant? In our opinion it is too early to tell. Current Sentiment, which measures how buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful in […]
Since Monday of this week Steel Market Update has been conducting a survey of the flat rolled steel market place. During the process SMU probes about a number of key topics of importance to buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel. One of the areas we deem to be very important is the status of […]
The domestic steel mills in North America continue to be willing to negotiate spot steel prices on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume products according to those responding to this week’s Steel Market Update flat rolled market trends survey. It has now been a number of months since the mills were last in a […]
One of my habits when writing this newsletter is to hold my Final Thoughts until after the vast majority if not the entire newsletter is complete. At that point I try to absorb what has transpired through the day and many times that day flows well into the evening. I think this is one of […]
Flat rolled steel prices were mixed this week with three of the four items moving lower and one (galvanized) remaining the same. The questions being asked by buyers – both at the service center and manufacturing level – is how much further do prices need to fall before bouncing back? The issue of “finding the […]
The trend for lower shipments and inventories out of the steel distributors in the United States continued during the month of September, according to just released Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) data. The MSCI reported total steel shipments declined 6.6 percent compared to one year ago while inventories dropped 17.2 percent YOY. September MSCI carbon […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated foreign steel import license data earlier today. SMU analyzes the license data through the 18th of October, produces a daily import license request rate and then we make an assumption that if the daily rate continues by the end of the month we will have “X” number of tons […]
For those who have not been members for a long period of time or who may be new to Steel Market Update this section, my Final Thoughts, is the one area where I get to pontificate (provide my opinion) on subjects of interest to me. Today I want to briefly address the elephant in the […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their decline this past week according to the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Two of the indexes (SMU & Platts) had benchmark hot rolled prices piercing the $500 per ton ($25.00/cwt) level in the spot markets in the United States and Canada. SteelBenchmarker did report prices but still […]
Steel Market Update asks our readers to interact with us anytime they need help finding information or if they have a question about the steel industry. During the process of responding to these requests many times we find ourselves doing research on a topic that would be of interest to a larger audience. On Friday […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been producing The Truth About Selling Steel and our Steel Buyers Basics series off and on since we officially started the company in August 2008. The purpose of these series of articles is to provide educational materials and articles for the flat rolled steel industry in the hopes that those […]
On Monday morning we will begin our mid-October flat rolled steel market survey. We expect to invite more than 550 people representing about 525 companies to participate in this market trends analysis. The invitations should be in your email inbox by 8 AM ET. We provide a power point presentation putting a good portion of […]
The conversation has begun regarding when flat rolled steel prices will end their slide and reverse course. Flat rolled steel prices have been in a steep decline since mid-June 2016 when benchmark hot rolled prices peaked at $635 per ton ($31.75/cwt, SMU index average) FOB domestic mill. Since then steel prices have retreated $145 per […]
Trading company sources have been telling SMU to expect foreign flat rolled steel prices, especially light gauge galvanized prices, to rise in the coming weeks. Traders are advising SMU that slab and hot band substrate prices have been rising around the world thus increasing the cost for many conversion mills to produce cold rolled and […]
Nucor Plate Mill Group began advising their customers on Tuesday of their intention to raise carbon and alloy plate as well as heat-treated plate prices. The mill advised their customers in an emailed letter with the following (reaction to the increase comes after the Nucor letter below): October 11, 2016 To our Valued Customers, Effective […]
After our last issue of Steel Market Update was published we received an email “letter to the editor” from a steel trading company regarding circumvention and other issues facing the domestic steel industry. Here is what the letter said: “After reading your update tonight and having been on a conference call with our Washington DC […]
In David Feldstein’s article on the HRC Futures market he correctly points out one of the factors that steel buyers need to watch closely is the value of the dollar against the currency of the international steel trading nations. As the dollar increases in value those wanting to ship steel here also increases. As the […]
Flat rolled steel prices continue to move lower as benchmark hot rolled broke through $500 per ton and is now averaging $490 per ton. We were relatively conservative in our range this week as we did capture at least one order placed for moderate tonnage at $440 per ton and we are hearing that the […]
One of the key questions Steel Market Update is being asked is: what is the status of steel demand being seen by manufacturers and flat rolled steel service centers in the current market? This is an area we cover during our twice monthly trends analysis of flat rolled steel market. So, let’s take a moment […]
In this evening’s edition we have included a number of articles that would normally go to just our Premium level members. We thought that our Executive level members would like to get an idea of some of the articles and data they are missing. Included in that list is the Power Point presentation of our […]
Steel Market Update ferrous scrap sources advised us over the weekend that scrap negotiations have wrapped up between the dealers and the domestic mills and that steel mills, once again, have walked away the winners as scrap prices dropped across the country. However, the weakest areas are those furthest away from the east coast where […]