Imports of total flat rolled products increased in January to 990,803 tons from 852,840 in December. Total long products increased from 412,848 to 552,093 tons. Total sheet products as a sub set of flat rolled increased from 677,510 to 775,337 tons. Semi finished declined from 604,558 to 532.813 tons. An analysis of the 3 month […]
January 24th 2014. The Turkish Lira is in freefall. What does this mean for the US ferrous scrap industry? This is a hard question to answer because we don’t know what we don’t know. What we do know is that the Turkish Lira has declined by 20.1% against the US $ in the last 12 […]
The headline number for Q4 was that GDP expanded by 3.2 percent from Q3, (Q/Q) which was down from the 4.1 percent expansion of Q3 over Q2. A better measure is that 2013 as a whole expanded by 2.74 percent which was the third straight quarter of expansion on a year-over-year basis. This is the […]
Both the expectations and the view of the present situation improved in the mind of consumers in January according to the latest Conference Board analysis. We thought it would be interesting to take a longer term view this month because our past analyses have been somewhat overshadowed by the surging confidence of the late 1990s. […]
Durable goods orders declined in December as did the three month moving average. Not a cause for concern at this point because even the 3MA of this indicator tends to be quite erratic (Figure 1). The year over year growth rate of the 3MMA declined from 7.9 percent in November to 5.1 percent in December. […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered by Steel Market Update at present is thirty six. The present situation of twelve of the indicators based on historical standards was positive on January 28th […]
January 24th 2014. The Turkish Lira is in freefall. What does this mean for the US ferrous scrap industry? This is a hard question to answer because we don’t know what we don’t know. What we do know is that the Turkish Lira has declined by 20.1% against the US $ in the last 12 […]
Global steel production in December was 129.2 million tonnes, an increase of 0.8 percent from November and of 6.3 percent from December 2102 according to the World Steel Association. The decline in the 2nd half of 2013 was much less than occurred in the previous three years. Capacity utilization in December was 74.7 percent. The […]
Light vehicle production in NAFTA in 2013 totaled, 16,141,347 units, the best year since 2002 and an increase of 6.0 percent on 2012 (Source Wards Automotive.). In 3 months through December production was up by 6.9 percent year over year. Light trucks which include crossovers are surging faster than cars, the year over year growth […]
The Chinese economy grew by 7.7 percent year-over-year (y/y) in the fourth quarter and by 7.7 percent in 2013 as a whole (Figure 1). The GDP growth rate has been in the range 7.4 percent to 7.9 percent for the last seven quarters. The Chinese economy is performing in line with the government’s goals at […]
Industrial production and manufacturing capacity utilization, December 2013. Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The IP index was reported as 101.76 for December; this was the first month for the index to exceed the pre-recession peak of September 2007. The three month moving average (3MMA) at 101.21 was […]
The most significant observation about housing permits and starts in 2013 was how the growth rate of both single and multi-family slowed progressively during the year. The three month moving average (3MMA) of the year-over-year growth rate of single family declined from 29.6 percent in March to 10.8 percent in December as multi-family declined from […]
Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out its series of producer price indexes (PPI), for thousands of goods and materials. The latest release on Wednesday reported December results. These statistics are a useful way to evaluate any changes in the competitive position of steel against competing materials. See below for the official description […]
Apparent supply is defined as domestic mill shipments to domestic locations plus imports. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce. The three month moving average of the total tonnage of sheet and strip supply was 4,436,772 tons per month in the period September through November. This was up by […]
Scrap exports continued their lack luster performance in November declining for the third straight month to 1,236,000 tonnes. Total exports YTD through November 16,904,000 tonnes down from 19,753,000 tonnes in the first 11 months of last year, a decline of 14.4 percent. The largest decline in November was shipments to Turkey, down by 72,000 tonnes […]
In the 12 months through November the US imported 29,129,427 tons of all steel products including semi finished, exported 11,594,574 tons for a net steel trade deficit of 17,534,853 tons. The major net importer was Brazil with 3,591,401 tons. Canada and Mexico both imported more from the US than they exported to the US resulting […]
The Federal Reserve publishes a trade weighted index of the value of the US$ against a basket of the currencies of our major trading partners weekly and monthly. The H.10 weekly release contains daily rates of exchange of major foreign currencies against the U.S. dollar. The data are noon buying rates in New York for […]
Net job creation in December was a disappointing 74,000, far below expectations. However November was revised up by 38,000 and the three month moving average of monthly job gains was hardly dented (Figure 1). This monthly result is at odds with most other economic indicators and was probably adversely affected by short term influences such […]
The Commerce Department compiles their information based on the source of financing. These categories are, private, state + local and federal. There are a huge number of sub categories in the private and state + local construction expenditure categories, not so many in federal where expenditures are minimal. At Steel Market Update we combine these […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered at present is thirty six. The present situation of eleven of the indicators based on historical standards was positive on December 28, the same as on November […]
Production declined by 5.0 percent from October to 127,364,000 tonnes, partly due to less days in the month but this was also the lowest monthly tonnage since February. Capacity utilization was 74.0 percent. The annualized three month moving average production was 1.576 billion tonnes through November (Figure 1). Capacity is now 2.076 billion tonnes. Global […]
Finally the first data on housing starts since August! Total starts in November shot up to 1,091,000, (annualized), the highest since February 2008. Both single and multi family starts were the strongest since H1 2008. The three month moving average of starts was also very encouraging. At the present rate of increase, single family could […]
The first estimate of Q3 GDP growth from the Bureau of Economic Analysis surprised on the upside with a growth of 2.82 percent annualized, the second estimate came in at 3.6 percent and the third at 4.1 percent, well within the range that results in the growth of steel demand. GDP in Q3 2013 was […]
In a rolling 12 months through November, light vehicle production (automotive) in NAFTA reached 16,093,000 units, a level not seen since May 2003. In three months through November production was up by 9.4 percent year over year. Light trucks, which include crossovers, are surging faster than cars, the year over year growth rates were 15.4 […]
Shipments of sheet and strip products in the first 10 months of 2013 were 29,178,320 tons, a decrease of 0.3 percent from the same period last year. Shipments in the three months August through October averaged 4,216,504 tons / month, an increase of 2.4 percent from the previous 3 months May through July and an […]
Year to date net imports of all hot worked products combined was 10,025,543 tons, down by 26,420 tons from the first ten months of 2012. This reduction was entirely driven by tubulars and plate. Pipe and tube had a decline in net imports of 925,617 tons and plate a decline of 509,778 tons. All other […]
Commerce Department data through October 2013. Focus on private construction. The Commerce Department compiles their information based on the source of financing. These categories are, private, state + local and federal. There are a huge number of sub categories in the private and state + local construction expenditure categories, not so many in federal where […]
Net job creation in November 2013 was 203,000 of which 159,000 were service providing and 44,000 were goods producing. This was the best goods producing result since February this year. Since February 2010, manufacturing has added 554,000 jobs and construction 329,000. In November the private sector added 196,000 jobs and government added 7,000. Of the […]
Imports of most rolled products and semi finished declined in November. The only exceptions were rail and tin plate. Sheet products were down by 21.5 percent in total but within that group coated products were down over 40 percent. An analysis of the 3 month moving averages (3MMA) of imports results in a very different […]
Each month Steel market Update publishes a table of 38 indicators that we believe captures the essence of the steel market and its drivers. Six of these indicators deal with construction which we believe consumes about 22 percent of all steel products in the US at present. Table 1 shows the construction section of the […]