Even though I personally believe steel prices will probably not go too much lower from here, we still have the SMU Price Momentum Indicator pointing toward lower pricing. We are looking for signs that the slide may be about over but, we continue to see weakness on hot rolled products. We got a note from […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their months long swoon as steel buyers confided in Steel Market Update that lower prices/offers are available for those who actually have tonnage to sell. One service center executive told us today, “We are getting offers for HR at around the $360NT price. I see a lot of material still […]
Last week Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our early November flat rolled steel market analysis. During the two step process we asked our respondents to comment on demand trends, both as a group (step one) and then again when broken out into their various market segments (step two). We ask questions related to demand again […]
One of the questions Steel Market Update received from a service center early this week was, “WHEN” will the bottom of the pricing cycle be achieved (the emphasis provided by the person asking the question). Stress levels continue to build at flat rolled steel distributors as evidenced by the percentage of our service center survey […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released import license data this afternoon. Steel Market Update reviews the data and compares it against previous months’ data at the same point in time during the month. What we are concentrating on are the four flat rolled items involved in the ongoing trade cases (AD/CVD). We are seeing a […]
I am here in New York City participating in the Cowen & Company Global Metals and Mining Conference. Day one was dedicated to the steel industry and the various commodities (scrap, iron ore, metallurgical coal). I thought I would provide a snapshot into some of the comments made during the conference by various CEO’s. Lourenco […]
On Thursday we reported scrap prices moved sideways on certain grades in the east and were down by as much as $30 per gross ton the further west you went. Chicago ended up the week with the weakest prices as many mills did not buy due to tepid demand and a desire to drive inventories […]
The various flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update are falling in line and reporting hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and plate prices the same. We find this interesting as the various steel price collection techniques are slightly different from one another. Could this be a harbinger that flat rolled prices are close […]
Steel Market Update saw a note from Bank of America Merrill Lynch metals and mining research group out of the UK regarding takeaways from their recent trip to China. In the note the group was skeptical of the push by the Chinese central government to remove another 80 million metric tons (88 million net tons) […]
I will be traveling to New York City tomorrow to participate in the Cowen & Company conference for the financial community. I will return to the office on Thursday morning. For those of you keeping up with our move – all of the phones are working properly including our main 800 number (800-432-3475). You are […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index is continuing its downward trend, even though the Current Index is 4 points higher and the Future segment of the Index is 9 points higher than what we reported during the middle of October. The numbers we follow closely are our 3 month moving averages (3MMA) […]
Our scrap sources reported ferrous scrap prices as having the most strength in the east where export pricing has bounced off the bottom and momentum has apparently turned in that region. One of the east coast dealers told us that scrap flows are “atrocious” and if it wasn’t for the “terrible demand situation the market […]
Steel Market Update asked one of our Asian iron ore and steel trading sources to comment on the recent decline in iron ore prices which recently broke below $50/dmt on 62% Fe fines in China. We also asked for a comment about the recent spat of trade suits and the Chinese mills not cooperating with […]
Twice per month, Steel Market Update (SMU) conducts an analysis of the flat rolled steel market from the perspective of active buyers and sellers of sheet and coil products. We invite approximately 560 companies to participate through the use of a questionnaire that we have been using since 2008. One of the areas probed is […]
Our flat rolled steel survey respondents reported the domestic steel mills as willing to negotiate flat rolled steel prices on virtually every product. The results of our flat rolled steel market analysis conducted throughout this week saw 93 percent of our respondents reporting benchmark hot rolled pricing as being negotiable. This is just about the […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce reported total foreign steel imports for the month of September 2015 were 2,834,240 net tons. This represents a 227,141 net ton reduction from the 3,061,381 net tons that arrived on U.S. shores during the month of August. The September tonnage was below both the twelve month and three month moving […]
Based on the most recent import license data released by the U.S. Department of Commerce, October import licenses totaled 3,399,248 net tons. We anticipate when the final census numbers are released for the month of October total steel imports will be somewhere between 3.2 and 3.4 million tons (net tons not metric tons). Imports of […]
I had an interesting conversation with a former trading company executive who was reflecting on the number of tons of Chinese galvanized steel that hit the U.S. shores in August, September and October 2015. Depending on when the preliminary determination on countervailing duties is published in the Federal Register, the Chinese mills are subject to […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced Preliminary Determinations on countervailing duties (CVD) for corrosion resistant steels from Italy (affirmative), China (affirmative), India (affirmative) and Korea (affirmative). There was one country, Taiwan, which was found to not be subject to countervailing duties. You will notice that there are a number of steel mills/exporters that were hit […]
We found flat rolled prices so far this week at about the same levels seen one week ago. Our hot rolled average remained at $390 per ton ($19.50/cwt) with both the upper and lower parts of our range at the same levels seen one week ago. The lower end of the cold rolled price range […]
On October 23, 2015 attorneys for the domestic steel mills alleged that exports from Brazil, Australia, Japan and the Netherlands surged into the United States in an effort to “…avoid the imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties.” Much like the corrosion resistant case that preceded the hot rolled filing which was originally made in August […]
We made a mistake in our ‘October at a Glance’ table in last Sunday’s newsletter. There was a typo in the SMU cold rolled price, resulting in an error in the average cold rolled price for the month of October. The corrected table is below:
The headline that you are going to read in not only our newsletter but in other publications as well, will be that the US Department of Commerce found evidence of material injury or potential material injury to the U.S. steel industry and therefore is preliminarily imposing countervailing duties on China, Italy, South Korea and India. […]
On Friday, October 30, 2015, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced their Preliminary Determination that critical circumstances existed on corrosion resistant steels from certain mills in the Peoples Republic of China (China), South Korea (Korea), Italy and Taiwan. Critical circumstances were not found for any company from India and only ILVA was identified from Italy. […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to erode at a moderate pace this past week. Steel Market Update reviewed the results of three other steel indexes as well as our own for the week ending October 30, 2015. We found, with the exception of the Platts indices, all of the other indexes saw prices down by […]
October was the second month in a row where SMU had our Pricing Momentum Indicator pointing toward lower pricing. SMU reports hot rolled coil, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume pricing every Tuesday evening. During October we produced our steel prices indices four times. HRC was reported at $420 per ton the first Tuesday of the […]
I am aware that on October 23, 2015 the domestic steel mills filed allegations of critical circumstances on exports of hot rolled coil from four countries: Brazil, Australia, Japan and The Netherlands. I will have more details and statements from both buyers and sellers later this week. I wanted to spend time studying the affirmative […]
After three days of non-stop packaging followed by 24 hours of non-stop cleaning we have finally departed our Georgia offices and are in transit (as I write) to our new location in Florida. It is a two day trip so if you call our office you may get a voice mail message – my apologies […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) asked a manufacturing company when they thought prices will stop dropping? Their response was both classic and profound, “Prices will stop going down, when they go up. Prices can’t go below absolute zero. Question then becomes as to what defines absolute zero…?” Flat rolled steel prices continued their march lower this […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (US DOC) released Preliminary Census Data for September foreign steel imports on Monday. September imports dropped below 3.0 million net tons and at 2.77 million net tons they were down 5 percent month-over-month. As you can see by the table below hot rolled imports were down by 100,000 tons and […]