Flat rolled steel lead times, according to those responding to this week’s market analysis questionnaire, have begun to move. The question now becomes will they continue to move and will they move out far enough to force buyers back into the market? Our respondents reported hot rolled lead times as having extended slightly from the […]
There was a significant change in the willingness of the domestic steel mills to negotiate pricing with their customers after the price announcements were made. According to the results of this week’s flat rolled market analysis conducted by Steel Market Update all products saw the percentage of those reporting the mills as willing to negotiate […]
When Steel Market Update (SMU) reviews pricing we take a number of items into account. We look at the transaction prices that buyers report to us as having been made within the past few days. We look at the offers to sell being made by the mills as well as the offers to buy being […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released shipment and inventory data for U.S. steel distributors. The headline for total steel products is shipments fell during the month of November both on a month over month basis (143,100 tons per day in November vs. 152,900 tons during October) as well as on a year-over-year basis (-8.1%). […]
USS/Posco (UPI) and California Steel both sent out letters over the past few working days advising their customers of their intention to raise prices on spot flat rolled orders. On December 11, 2015 USS/Posco sent out a letter announcing $40 per ton. On Monday, December 14, 2015 California Steel Industries (CSI) opened their February order […]
SMU was advised over the weekend that Nucor had raised spot plate pricing by $30 per ton. On Monday, SSAB followed the Nucor lead by providing a letter to their customers advising them, “Please be advised that effective immediately SSAB Americas is raising the transaction price for all non-contract As-Rolled Mill Plate, Cut-To-Length Plate >72”, […]
I hope that all of you will take a few moments to click on the links provided for the speakers and for the PGA National Resort & Spa to get a better feel for the quality of the program we will be putting on in March for a select few company executives. There is a […]
A thank you to Keith Gunter of McElroy for sharing his annual Christmas poem for the steel industry with us. If you have anything you would like to share (tastefully) with the industry please feel free to forward them to my attention: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com We just confirmed our last couple of speakers for our new Leadership […]
On Friday Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Neutral to Higher. With almost all of the major mills now walking in step with one another (at least regarding the direction of prices from here if not the exact rate of change from where they were a couple of weeks ago), we […]
On Friday Nucor and ArcelorMittal USA followed the lead of NLMK USA, Northstar Bluescope and AK Steel by announcing steel price increases on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized coated steels. Nucor sent a letter to their customers advising them that base prices on new orders would increase by a minimum of $40 per ton […]
We are already seeing some signs of the “turn” as the flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update saw very little movement this past week. Both SMU and Platts saw hot rolled pricing as stable while CRU was down $5 per ton (SteelBenchmarker did not report prices this past week). Our average was […]
We will conduct our mid-December flat rolled steel market analysis (survey) beginning on Monday of this week. If you are on the invite list, please take a few moments to click on the link (button) and respond to our online questionnaire. If you were on the invite list in the past and for some reason […]
Two domestic mills made price moves on Wednesday as NLMK USA and then AK Steel came out with price increases on flat rolled steel. The NLMK announcement did not reference specific base price levels while the AK Steel announcement did. NLMK USA was the first to announce, which they did in an letter to their […]
The rumblings of a price increase have been building for a couple of weeks now as mills like SDI (Butler) and Nucor (Berkeley) have been quietly asking for higher steel prices from their customers prior to any announcements being made. On Tuesday we traded emails with a service center executive who told us, “While rumblings […]
Earlier this week Steel Market Update (SMU) attended the annual HARDI conference in Orlando, Florida. The well attended conference focused on a number of areas affecting the HVAC Wholesalers including presentations on the economy by Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research (ITR) and Steel Market Update regarding the status of the galvanized sheet […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) is constantly being asked to provide details as to the status of the hot rolled, cold rolled and corrosion resistant (CORE) antidumping and countervailing duty trade suits. Here is the status of each investigation as of today, December 10, 2015: CORE – Corrosion Resistant Steels (Galvanized/Galvalume, etc.) Original Filing Date: June […]
As the domestic mills announce price increases in the hopes of changing market momentum, one of the negatives is the spot price of iron ore in China (the largest seaborne ore buyer). Iron ore prices have been collapsing for the past two years with 62% Fe fines reaching $37.5/dmt today (TSI data). As you can […]
I expect the other domestic mills to go along with price increases of their own – whether they choose to announce the move may depend on what they feel is in their best interest. I would anticipate that Nucor will come out with their own announcement. US Steel and ArcelorMittal are in the process of […]
The service centers with whom we communicated over the past few days are talking about the “whispers” of a possible price increase announcement. A number have told SMU that mills like SDI Butler and Nucor Berkeley are asking for higher spot prices than what was available two weeks ago. A service center executive told us, […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been analyzing service center spot pricing based on reports from manufacturing and distribution respondents to our flat rolled steel market questionnaire. SMU canvassed the market last week and we believe that the results suggests an uptick in spot pricing will come soon. Manufacturing companies responding to our survey had 90 […]
Late Tuesday afternoon the U.S. Department of Commerce released updated import license data for November and on Friday of this past week they also released Final Census data for the month of October. The final October number was just over 3.0 million net tons while the license data for November appears will be 400,000 less […]
I will have a detailed report regarding the HARDI annual conference in Thursday evening’s issue. However, the news is good for those involved in the construction industries with Alan Beaulieu, Chief Economist for HARDI and co-founder of the Institute for Trend Research, proclaiming 2016 will be better than 2015 and 2017 will be even better […]
On Friday of this past week Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Lower to Neutral. This move is being made as we are seeing more evidence of the domestic steel mills taking a stand and either raising spot prices (especially on coated steels) or refusing to go any lower. As one […]
Ferrous scrap prices are one of the key indicators to watch as the market determines if we have reached the bottom in the slide in flat rolled prices and, if prices will rebound from here. The thought process has been that a move higher in scrap will help change the psychology of the market and […]
Over the past few weeks we have seen major movement in flat rolled steel prices. The question now is have we seen the end of the major moves lower (some suggest hot rolled has a way to go since lead times are not yet into January at most mills) or do we have a way […]
This morning, Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Lower to Neutral. This move is being made as we are seeing more evidence of the domestic steel mills taking a stand and either raising spot prices (especially on coated steels) or are refusing to go any lower. As one steel buyer put […]
I am in Orlando attending the HARDI annual conference. I will be addressing their sheet metal committee a little later in the week. Also here is Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research (ITR). I look forward to hearing Alan speak both here and at the end of August 2016 when he will once […]
Steel Market Update continues to speak with both buyers and sellers of steel on a daily basis. As this week has worn on, we uncovered a number of price points below what we reported on Tuesday. We feel that we need to advise our readers of our findings and adjust the lower end of our […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index continued its long slide as buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are less optimistic this week regarding their company’s ability to be successful both in the existing (Current) market as well as three to six months into the future (Future). Respondents to our queries regarding Sentiment […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data collected through December 1st for the month of November. Based on license data (which can vary from the final census numbers) November foreign steel imports should be approximately 2.5 million net tons. If correct, this would be the lowest level seen since December 2013 which was the […]