Steel Market Update offers a comprehensive series of import reports ranging from the first look at licensed data to the very detailed look at volume by district of entry and source nation. The report you are reading now is designed to plug the gap between those two. National level import reports do a good job […]
Steel Market Update offers a comprehensive series of import reports ranging from the first look at licensed data to the very detailed look at volume by district of entry and source nation. The report you are reading now is designed to plug the gap between those two. National level import reports do a good job […]
Steel Market Update offers a comprehensive series of import reports ranging from the first look at licensed data to the very detailed look at volume by district of entry and source nation. The report you are reading now is designed to plug the gap between those two. National level import reports do a good job […]
Steel Market Update offers a comprehensive series of import reports ranging from the first look at licensed data to the very detailed look at volume by district of entry and source nation. The report you are reading now is designed to plug the gap between those two. National level import reports do a good job […]
In October, demand for sheet products declined by more than the seasonal norm. Demand for long products is softening as construction expenditures decline. This analysis by Steel Market Update is based on steel mill shipment data from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and import-export data from the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC). The […]
Steel Market Update offers a comprehensive series of import reports ranging from the first look at licensed data to the very detailed look at volume by district of entry and source nation. The report you are reading now is designed to plug the gap between those two. National level import reports do a good job […]
Steel Market Update offers a comprehensive series of import reports ranging from the first look at licensed data to the very detailed look at volume by district of entry and source nation. The report you are reading now is designed to plug the gap between those two. National level import reports do a good job […]
This Steel Market Update report examines the import share of sheet, plate, long and tubular products and 16 subcategories. Since January, there has only been one month when the import market share of total sheet products exceeded 15 percent. The import share of HRC has been below 10 percent since January. The most striking result […]
The popular press often gets overly excited or depressed by a single month’s employment report, but November really was an exceptional month. Net job creation in November increased to 266,000 following upwardly revised results for September and October. September was revised up by 13,000 and October by 28,000. Rising employment and wages are the main […]
Manufacturing gained 54,000 jobs in November, more than offsetting the effects of the GM strike. Construction added 1,000 jobs last month, as well. The private sector gained 254,000 jobs in November as government gained 12,000 positions. Table 1 breaks total employment down into service and goods-producing industries and then into private and government employees. Most […]
With little likelihood of a recession any time soon, the U.S. economy appears to be in better shape than many people believe. This Steel Market Update analysis attempts to provide guidance on the likelihood of a recession in the next six months. Steel demand is related to GDP, but is vastly more volatile both on […]
Commerce Department data indicates a slowdown in steel product shipments and new orders in 2019. Steel industry trade association data from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) are most widely used to assess the state of the industry. In addition, the Census Bureau provides monthly data on […]
State and locally funded construction is relatively healthy, but privately funded work is in decline, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of Commerce Department data. Construction Put in Place (CPIP) expenditures data for October was released on Dec. 2. Through October, total construction had negative momentum every month since October last year. In the […]
In the last month, the prices of three of the five raw materials tracked by Steel Market Update in this report declined, one advanced and one was unchanged. Table 1 summarizes the price changes through Nov. 20 of the five materials considered in this analysis. It reports the month/month, 3 months/3 months and 12 months/12 […]
Global steel production contracted in October for the first time since March 2016, according to Steel Market Update’s analysis of OECD and WSA data. Figure 1 shows annualized monthly global steel production on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis and capacity utilization since January 2000. Based on OECD data (see below), capacity utilization in October […]
November’s licensed import volume of total rolled steel products was the lowest since February 2010. Year over year, total rolled product imports in November were down by 27.4 percent on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis. This follows the 17.7 percent decrease in October and 15.5 percent decline in September on the same basis. This […]
This report is designed to be a big picture summary of data SMU has reported in detail during the month. It summarizes 36 data streams that describe the state of the steel market and provide forward guidance for steel buyers and sellers. See the end of this piece for an explanation of the Key Indicators […]
The Conference Board’s September-November reports on consumer confidence show an increased weakening of people’s expectations. Consumer confidence as reported by The Conference Board is quite a volatile indicator; therefore, we prefer to smooth the data with a moving average to reduce monthly variability. The composite value of consumer confidence in November was 125.5 with a […]
Irrespective of the GM strike, light vehicle assemblies in North America slowed through October. This report is based on data from LMC Automotive for automotive assemblies in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The breakdown of assemblies is “Personal” (cars for personal use) and “Commercial” (light vehicles less than 6.0 tonnes gross vehicle weight rating). Heavy […]
U.S. gross domestic product had positive growth in every region of the country in each of the first two quarters of 2019, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. The BEA reports GDP by state and region on a quarterly basis. This data is released several weeks after the national report. The latest data was […]
Steel Market Update is please to share this Premium content with Executive-level subscribers. For information on how to upgrade to a Premium-level subscription, email Info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. Manufacturing output shows contraction in nine of the 10 indicators analyzed by Steel Market Update, which helps to explain the current weakness in steel demand in some sectors. This report […]
The U.S. dollar has weakened against 11 of the 16 steel trading nation currencies in the last three months. In this report we examine the change in currency values of the 16 preeminent global steel and iron ore trading nations. The currencies of these 16 don’t necessarily follow the Broad Index value of the U.S, […]
Crude oil prices have been stable since mid-June, but the rig count continues to decline. The total number of operating rigs exploring for oil has declined by 211 or 23.8 percent since the end of last year. The spot price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) FOB Cushing, Okla., has been very consistent since mid-June ranging from […]
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 product categories. This report takes the total national tonnage of hot rolled and breaks it down into product detail. Using U.S. International Trade Commission […]
Using U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) data, Steel Market Update has taken the import tonnage of cold rolled sheet and broken it down into coil and leveled; then it breaks out four thickness ranges and identifies how much was full hard, annealed and high strength. Through September 2019, of the total cold rolled sheet and […]
The third quarter of 2019 saw a disappointing decrease in labor productivity. The labor productivity of nonfarm businesses decreased by 0.3 percent in the quarter. Unit labor costs increased 3.1 percent year over year, according to Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. Unit labor costs and productivity changes are […]
The composite producer price index of all commodities peaked in October last year and in 12 months through September has declined by 3.2 percent. This Steel Market Update report is an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data and is intended to provide subscribers with a view of the competitive position of sheet steel, aluminum, […]
Demand for steel sheet products declined by more than the seasonal norm in September. This analysis by Steel Market Update is based on steel mill shipment data from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and import/export data from the U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC). The analysis summarizes total steel supply by product from 2003 […]
October’s licensed import volume of total rolled steel products continued the decline from September and was the lowest since February 2011. Rolled product imports in October were down by 17.7 percent on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis year over year. This follows the 15.5 percent decline in September. This early look at October’s import […]
Steel Market Update is pleased to share this Premium content with Executive-level members. For more information on upgrading to a Premium-level subscription, email Info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. This analysis breaks down the imported tonnage of six flat rolled products into the district of entry and the source nation. We believe that misinformation (or lack of) about local import […]