“We are focused on availability more than price.” This morning Steel Market Update participated in a very subdued galvanized steel conference call with members of the Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration, Distributors International trade group. HARDI members are wholesalers who supply the mechanical contractors doing work on residential and commercial construction jobs. The key takeaway I got […]
The 2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference already has more than 400 executives registered to attend representing more than 150 companies. We are anticipating a full house when the conference opens on Aug. 23 at the Georgia International Convention Center next to the Atlanta International Airport (ATL). We know there are many of you who have […]
The 2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference already has more than 400 executives registered to attend representing more than 150 companies. We are anticipating a full house when the conference opens on Aug. 23 at the Georgia International Convention Center next to the Atlanta International Airport (ATL). We know there are many of you who have […]
Time for Good News… It is time for optimism as the pandemic begins to fade in the USA, reported a Washington Post article posted at 2:18 p.m. this afternoon. Today, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stated that fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear masks indoors or outdoors. “Americans who are fully vaccinated […]
Honest answer: I don’t know… One of the questions asked in last week’s flat rolled and plate steel market trends analysis has been repeated many times over the past five months. The phrasing of the question changes as steel prices continue to rise and surprise those taking our steel market survey. We asked last week, […]
“It’s a miserable boat, but at least we are all in this together.” Large manufacturing company A new hole in the boat today…NLMK USA lost their Farrell, Pa., hot strip mill for one to two weeks. Price becomes irrelevant when your customers need product and there is nowhere else to go. That is what one […]
“It’s a miserable boat, but at least we are all in this together.” Large manufacturing company A new hole in the boat today…NLMK USA lost their Farrell, Pa., hot strip mill for one to two weeks. Price becomes irrelevant when your customers need product and there is nowhere else to go. That is what one […]
2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference Revised Agenda as of May 9, 2021 The 2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference will be held at the Georgia International Convention Center on Aug. 23-25. The convention center is conveniently located next to the Atlanta International Airport (ATL). The center and the hotels surrounding it are at the first stop […]
2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference Revised Agenda as of May 9, 2021 The 2021 SMU Steel Summit Conference will be held at the Georgia International Convention Center on Aug. 23-25. The convention center is conveniently located next to the Atlanta International Airport (ATL). The center and the hotels surrounding it are at the first stop […]
Price, Price, Price… I might as well begin where I left off in our last issue of Steel Market Update on Thursday. Everyone wants to know when this market will peak, then tip over, and how far it will then fall. There are a wide range of opinions within the steel community, from prices will […]
I have been “out” for the past few days as my daughter has received her shots and has been visiting us for the first time in well over a year. A special thank you to the SMU team for picking up the slack in my absence. Jumping right back into the fray, as Michael mentioned […]
Jumping right back into the fray, as Michael Cowden mentioned in his Final Thoughts in Tuesday’s issue of Steel Market Update, the talk is about nothing but price, price, price. As we look for signs of possible steel mill order book weakness, we are seeing conflicting signals. There are a couple of steel mills who […]
Sometimes it seems like the faster I move the further behind I get…. I think steel buyers are beginning to realize they have precious little control over this market, and they are just along for the ride. As I reviewed the results of this week’s flat rolled and plate steel market trends analysis (our steel […]
When I started Steel Market Update in August 2008 and I began to look at steel prices, I did so from a different viewpoint than the indexes that already existed. Having just completed a 31-year career in selling flat rolled steel, I believed what was most important for steel buyers to understand was the range […]
Nucor, SDI and Cliffs all announced earnings last week. All of the CEOs are quite bullish as all of their flat rolled mills are running at full capacity. And with pricing now in excess of $1,400 per ton for benchmark hot rolled, the mills are reporting record or near record quarterly profits for first-quarter 2021. […]
Everything You Want to Know About This Year’s Conference There is much to talk about at this year’s SMU Steel Summit Conference as the industry deals with record high prices, strong demand, challenges to supply, questions about trade, new steel mills about to come onstream and more recently announced, automotive moving to electric vehicles, questions […]
Everything You Want to Know About This Year’s Conference There is much to talk about at this year’s SMU Steel Summit Conference as the industry deals with record high prices, strong demand, challenges to supply, questions about trade, new steel mills about to come onstream and more recently announced, automotive moving to electric vehicles, questions […]
My first job in the steel industry started in July 1977. I have been involved with the industry ever since. I’m coming up on 44 years in a few months. That either makes me old or wise…well, old anyway. What I can tell you is during those 44 years I have never seen a market […]
Buyers of flat rolled and plate steels continue to complain of their inability to get enough steel in order to supply their customers. In the latest analysis conducted by Steel Market Update last week, 47% of the respondents to our survey reported they were unable to get enough supply. We have seen a small improvement […]
Buyers of flat rolled and plate steels continue to complain of their inability to get enough steel in order to supply their customers. In the latest steel market analysis conducted by Steel Market Update last week, 47% of the respondents to our survey reported they were unable to get enough supply. We have seen a […]
Learn how to build and execute your company’s risk strategy. Would you like to take control of your steel business’s price risk in these uncertain times? With wild swings in steel prices having become the norm rather than the exception, Steel Market Update, in conjunction with CRU and the CME Group, are here to help. […]
We understand at least one integrated steelmaker is approaching their spot customers with hot rolled base prices of $1,500 to $1,520 per ton. We are not aware of any buyers at this “suggested” HRC price level (it wasn’t that long ago that $1,300 was the “suggested” steel price). We concluded one of our SMU Flat […]
Many of our readers are associated with the cold rolled or coated steel markets. Steel Market Update is offering a new workshop for those of you who want to manage price risk on cold rolled, galvanized or other value-added flat rolled products. This is an introductory level workshop, which will be conducted on April 21 […]
Earlier this week, Steel Market Update received an email from a consulting company that is working with a client who is suffering through the high spot steel prices and wanted advice on how to negotiate a contract with their suppliers and basically how to manage the steel price risk. There are many ways to respond to […]
There are specific reasons for the tightness of supply that exists in the market today. Events have been in motion for the past 25 years that have culminated in the limitations of supply. For those of you who have attended SMU Steel Summit Conferences you may recall a presentation done by Paul Lowrey, Managing Director […]
Over the weekend I was speaking with the CEO of a service center and we were talking about the resistance he was seeing from his plant employees. Many of them did not want to get the COVID vaccine. The office people were mostly vaccinated, but the plant people were not. We discussed the possibility of […]
If you are a buyer (or seller) of cold rolled, galvanized or Galvalume steels, you are aware of the volatility in your pricing, which may or may not mirror the price of hot rolled coil. Over the past few years, the spread between hot rolled base prices and the base prices being asked for cold […]
Foreign steel imports are building, according to the latest license data from the U.S. government. Total licenses were 2.7 million net tons for March. This is well above the 1.984 million net ton average over the last two years. It is also equal to or above the first month of the quarter tonnage, which is […]
Looking for a Top… Looking for Steel…. As we conduct our analysis of the flat rolled and plate steel prices this week, we cannot help but notice the pace of increases has slowed…or is the slowing due to many mill order books being closed and having nothing new to offer. The availability of spot tonnage […]
Looking for a Top… Looking for Steel…. As we conduct our analysis of the flat rolled and plate steel prices this week, we cannot help but notice the pace of increases has slowed…or is the slowing due to many mill order books being closed and having nothing new to offer. The availability of spot tonnage […]