Steel Market Update is sharing the following Premium-level content on flat rolled imports with Executive-level members. For more information about upgrading to a Premium-level subscription, contact info@steelmarketupdate.com. This analysis breaks down the imported tonnage of six flat rolled products into the district of entry and the source country. We believe that misinformation (or lack of) […]
Each month, Steel Market Update produces an import analysis by region for two of the six flat rolled product groups (HRC, CRC, HGD, OMC, CTL plate and coiled plate). This month, we are focusing on plate products. The intent of these regional updates is to bridge the gap between our monthly licensed data summaries and […]
Each month, Steel Market Update produces an import analysis by region for two of the six flat rolled product groups (HRC, CRC, HGD, OMC, CTL plate and coiled plate). This month, we are focusing on plate products. The intent of these regional updates is to bridge the gap between our monthly licensed data summaries and […]
Net job creation in August totaled 201,000 positions. Manufacturing took a small step back, but year to date the results are good, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. Table 1 breaks total employment down into service and goods-producing industries and then into private and government employees. Most […]
Premium subscribers to Steel Market Update have access to reports on our website that break out the import tonnage into district of entry and source nation for six sheet and plate categories. SMU has now developed reports that drill down the HRC and CRC into product detail both nationally and for each district. We report […]
Are the Section 232 tariffs affecting the volume of steel imports? We will look at this several different ways, as the answer depends on what time frame is chosen for comparison. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Aug. 10 that since the imposition of Section 232 tariffs in March, imports to the U.S. have declined […]
Editor’s note: Normally a Premium offering, we are sharing this article with our Executive members. For more information about Premium-level membership, click here. Steel mill shipments are up while the shipment-to-inventory ratio is down, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of Census Bureau data. This is an alternative data source for steel product shipments […]
Global steel production in July hit an annual rate of 1.855 billion metric tons. Capacity is calculated to be 2.38 billion metric tons; therefore, capacity utilization was 78 percent, according to the latest Steel Market Update analysis of World Steel Association data. In three months through July, Chinese production grew by 10.5 percent year over […]
Global steel production in August achieved an annual rate of 1.821 billion metric tons. Capacity is calculated to be 2.4 billion metric tons; therefore, capacity utilization was 76 percent, according to the latest Steel Market Update analysis of World Steel Association data. In three months through August, China’s steel production grew by 9.0 percent year […]
Consumer confidence increased strongly in August and the three-month moving average (3MMA) had the largest monthly increase since October last year, according to The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey. The composite value of consumer confidence in August was 133.4, up from 127.9 in July. The 3MMA increased from 127.9 in July to 129.5 in August, […]
Consumer confidence surged again in September to its highest level since September 2000, according to The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey. The composite value of consumer confidence in September was 138.4, up from 134.7 in August. The three-month moving average (3MMA) increased from 129.9 in August to 133.6 in September, which was 13.3 points higher […]
Construction is on a roll with expenditures in July at an all-time high, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of Commerce Department data. In the Sept. 4 data release which reported expenditures through July, the growth of total construction on a rolling 12-month basis year over year increased from 2.1 percent in January to […]
Economic indicators of manufacturing activity continue to look favorable for the rest of 2018. This report summarizes nine data sources that describe the state of manufacturing in the United States. We have reported on most of these separately in our Steel Market Update publications, and therefore will be brief in this summary. We don’t expect […]
Table 1 summarizes the August prices of the five materials considered in this report and the month/month, three months/three months and year/year change. In the last month, coking coal FOB Australia’s East Coast eked out a small gain as the other four experienced price declines. At the Jackson Hole meeting of the Fed on Friday, […]
Recent price changes have been mixed for steelmaking commodities. In the last three months, coking coal and iron ore have trended up as pig iron, scrap and zinc have trended down. Table 1 summarizes the September prices of the five materials considered in this report and the month/month, three months/three months and year/year change. Iron […]
U.S. gross domestic product grew in every region of the country in the last quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. The BEA introduced a new data set for GDP by state and region in 2014 and backdated it to Q1 2005. This week, the data […]
The spot price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) has been erratic in the last four months with two brief spikes above $70 per barrel. The oil price was $66.50 on Aug. 20. The total number of operating rigs exploring for oil and gas was up by 11.7 percent year over year and increased by nine […]
There are big differences in the year-to-date increase of hot rolled coil imports on a regional basis, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of government data. Imports of hot rolled coil into the U.S. as a whole were up by 21.4 percent in June year to date, but the Pacific South was up by […]
The Great Lakes and Gulf dominate as entry points for cold rolled imports. There are big differences in the year to date decreases on a regional basis, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of government data. Imports of cold rolled coil into the U.S. as a whole were down 23.1 percent year to date […]
This analysis breaks down the imported tonnage of six flat rolled products into the district of entry and the source country. We believe that misinformation (or lack of) about local import volumes is often used to influence purchase decisions. Our intent with this analysis is to describe in detail what is going on in a […]
Premium subscribers to Steel Market Update receive reports on imports broken down into district of entry and source nation. This new report from SMU takes the analysis to the product detail level. Our rationale is that the more information steel buyers have about the fine detail of what is coming into their region, the better […]
Steel Market Update offers this early look at July’s import volume based on license data (see explanation below). The analysis evaluates the pressure that imports are having on individual products at the national level, but gives no indication of regional differences. SMU has developed a new series of regional reports for the six main flat […]
The U.S. economy created 157,000 net jobs in July on a seasonally adjusted basis, down from 248,000 in June, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data released on Friday. This decline was partly mitigated by revisions to May and June, which improved by 24,000 and 4,000, respectively. Conditions remain very positive in the U.S. […]
In June 2018, 12,751,000 people were employed in manufacturing and 7,242,000 in construction. Construction employment has grown by 4.4 percent in the last 12 months, while jobs in manufacturing have increased by 2.6 percent. In the last three months, however, manufacturing employment has gained almost twice the number of jobs as construction, according to Steel […]
Consumer confidence increased in July after a small dip in June, but the three-month moving average (3MMA) advanced in each of those months, according to The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey. The composite value of consumer confidence in July was 127.4, up from 127.1 in June. The 3MMA increased from 127.2 in June to 127.8 […]
There are no clouds on manufacturing’s horizon. Economic indicators of manufacturing activity are virtually all positive for the remainder of 2018, according to Steel Market Update’s analysis of nine data sources that describe the state of manufacturing in the United States. We have reported on most of these separately in our Steel Market Update publications, […]
The U.S. economy grew at a 4.1 percent rate in the second quarter, up from 2.2 percent in the first quarter, according to the government’s first estimate of the gross domestic product. Growth of second-quarter GDP was the best since third-quarter 2014, and on a trailing 12-month basis has improved for the last eight quarters, […]
Construction is on a roll with expenditures in June at an all-time high, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of Commerce Department data. In the Aug. 1 data release, which reported expenditures through June, the growth of total construction on a rolling 12-month basis year over year increased from 2.1 percent in January to […]
China’s share of global steel production is setting a new high each month. Global steel production was down by 1.1 percent in June, but May’s production hit an all-time high and June was the second highest month ever, according to the latest Steel Market Update analysis of World Steel Association data. In three months through […]
In both Q1 and Q2 2018, the South Central region pulled ahead of the Pacific in total job creation, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The BLS released second-quarter employment data by state on Friday. The state data follows the national figures that were published on July 6 […]