By CRU Economists Jumana Saleheen and Economist Yingrui Wang, from CRU’s Steel Metallics Monitor Special Feature: China will set out its major economic objectives and policy goals for 2020 at the National People’s Congress. We expect fiscal stimulus of 5-8 percent of nominal GDP to be announced, half the size of the stimulus that followed […]
By CRU Analyst Nikki Ni, from CRU’s Steel Monitor Over the past month, Chinese steel demand has accelerated, resulting in lower inventories while output remained at a high level. The ongoing demand recovery has improved the Steel PMI to 45.9 in April, up by 3.7pp m/m. Despite being below the 50-mark, the consecutive m/m improvement […]
By CRU Senior Analyst Manjot Singh, from CRU’s Metallurgical Coal Market Outlook Seaborne coking coal prices were steady last week as market participants adopted a “wait-and-see” approach due to the ongoing uncertainty in the coal market. There are upside risks to seaborne prices in the form of relatively strong demand in China, and ease of […]
By CRU Economist Anissa Chabib, from CRU’s Economic Outlook On May 8, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the official U.S. unemployment data for April. Unemployment increased to 14.7 percent from 4.4 percent in March. This is the highest rate and the largest month-on-month increase in the history of the series, which was created […]
This week’s SMU comparison of foreign and domestic hot rolled prices shows that U.S prices remain advantageous over foreign imports, albeit slightly less so than late-April figures, according to SMU and CRU indices. The price gap between domestic HRC compared to German and Italian imports remains over $100 per ton, as has been the case […]
We are in the middle of a black swan event—an event that is expected but unexpected, said Chris Kuehl, managing director of Armada Corporate Intelligence during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat Webinar. “Viral threats are not new and have been frequent in the past few decades, but we don’t know from year to year how they […]
We are in the middle of a black swan event—an event that is expected but unexpected, said Chris Kuehl, managing director of Armada Corporate Intelligence during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat Webinar. “Viral threats are not new and have been frequent in the past few decades, but we don’t know from year to year how they […]
By CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley, from CRU’s Steel Metallics Monitor The CRU metallics price indicator (CRUmpi) moved higher by 11.5 percent m/m to 202.4 in May. Supply constraints caused by the Covid-19 pandemic combined with either sustained or recovering scrap demand to lift prices across most of the globe, although pig iron demand was […]
We had an exceptional SMU Community Chat Webinar with Dr. Chris Kuehl of Armada Corporate Intelligence on Wednesday morning. I am getting nothing but rave reviews of our free webinars, and I encourage you to inform your management and other teammates to register and then tune in at 11 AM ET every Wednesday. Next week […]
We had an exceptional SMU Community Chat Webinar with Dr. Chris Kuehl of Armada Corporate Intelligence on Wednesday morning. I am getting nothing but rave reviews of our free webinars, and I encourage you to inform your management and other teammates to register and then tune in at 11 AM ET every Wednesday. Next week […]
By CRU Senior Analyst Erik Hedborg, from the CRU Steelmaking Raw Materials Monitor In the past week, the iron ore price has risen to $88.8 /dmt as seaborne supply displayed some temporary weakness while China’s steel production remained at a high level. The current iron ore price, $5.3 /dmt higher than last week, sits at […]
By CRU Senior Consultants Amir Sabet and Josefa Carrere, from CRU’s Steelmaking Raw Materials Monitor The Covid-19 pandemic has generated significant uncertainty in the commodities market. For the steel sector, this has resulted in a fall in demand and steelmakers have responded by taking a wide range of capacity-related actions. In this Insight we show […]
By CRU Principal Consultant Laura Brooks and Senior Consultant Amir Sabet, from CRU’s Crude Steel Market Outlook The market impacts of Covid-19 are unknown in scale, varied and staggered in time across the world. The steel raw materials markets are being affected to a lesser or greater extent depending on the demand-side and supply-side regional […]
Pandemic is a public health issue, not a political issue. I watched just a few minutes of the Senate testimony today with Dr. Fauci, Dr. Redfield of the CDC, Dr. Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Admiral Giroir, the Assistant Secretary for Health. I thought one question and answer was interesting in […]
Ferrous scrap prices for May have settled up $30/GT for shredded and up $40-50/GT for busheling as the coronavirus shutdowns have disrupted scrap generation and collection, resulting in extremely tight supplies. Higher scrap prices may lend support to the higher finished steel prices announced by the mills this week. The tight supply is a more […]
By CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley, from CRU’s Long Products Monitor U.S. domestic long product prices were forced lower across the board as demand weakness caused by the Covid-19 pandemic combined with a substantial m/m decline in scrap prices. Construction activity in many states was either curtailed or prohibited entirely as local governments took measures […]
By CRU Research Manager Paul Butterworth and Analyst Alexander Ordosch, from CRU’s Global Steel Trade Service The global Covid-19 outbreak has resulted in sharply falling steel demand all over the world. For the steel industry, it is a challenging task to reduce production levels as ~75 percent of global output is produced through the BF/BOF, […]
By CRU Chief Economist Jumana Saleheen, from CRU’s Global Steel Trade Service Many are still discussing what type of recession will ensue following the Covid-19 pandemic. Will it be U-, V- or L-shaped? Different people may refer to the same shape to mean different outcomes. To bring clarity to this issue, this insight sets out […]
When I started Steel Market Update back in 2008, I knew I wanted to build something that would become a community centered on providing quality market information and a platform from which I could help educate and motivate those within the industry. On the Steel Market Update website, we describe our mission as follows: To […]
The prices we reference this evening reflect orders being placed this week, as well as the prices being quoted by the mills to their customers. It is important that our readers understand there was a flurry of activity last week at numbers at, or below, the low end of our range. We discussed with one […]
The prices we reference this evening reflect orders being placed this week, as well as the prices being quoted by the mills to their customers. It is important that our readers understand there was a flurry of activity last week at numbers at, or below, the low end of our range. We discussed with one […]
Buyers of flat rolled and plate steels provided insights into the market to Steel Market Update throughout the day. On the flat rolled side, steel buyers seemed to be resigned to paying higher prices. Flat rolled price quotes are firming at the domestic mills, and the mills may well achieve their desired minimums of $500-$520 […]
Buyers of flat rolled and plate steels provided insights into the market to Steel Market Update throughout the day. On the flat rolled side, steel buyers seemed to be resigned to paying higher prices. Flat rolled price quotes are firming at the domestic mills, and the mills may well achieve their desired minimums of $500-$520 […]
By CRU Senior Analyst Erik Hedborg, from CRU’s Steelmaking Raw Materials Monitor In a quiet week, iron ore prices have remained steady as Chinese buying activities were muted during the country’s Labor holiday. On Tuesday, May 5, iron ore prices were trading at $83.5 /t, $1.0 /t higher than the prior week. China’s recovery has […]
By CRU Managing Consultant Ben Jones, from CRU’s Steel Sheet Products Market Outlook Understanding the shape and nature of the Covid-19 cycle will be critical to commercial success, and in some cases, survival of many industry players. Traditional thinking about pathways back to normality (e.g. V, U, W, L shaped recoveries) ignores the potential for […]
By CRU Chief Economist Jumana Saleheen and CRU Economist Ippolito Tarabini, from CRU’s Steel Sheet Products Market Outlook Lockdowns continued into April. They resulted in a fall in activity, particularly in the hospitality, entertainment and travel sectors. Using estimates of the loss of output by sector, we find that one month of lockdown lowers the […]
“Vacation: An extended period of recreating, especially one spent away from home or traveling.” Last week I took “vacation” time off, and unlike the definition above I did little recreating, rarely strayed from home, and did no traveling. How restful is that? The big news from last week was an apparent “firming” of steel prices. […]
This week’s SMU comparison of foreign and domestic hot rolled prices shows that U.S prices are becoming even more advantageous over foreign imports, according to SMU and CRU indices. The price gap between domestic HRC compared to German and Italian products has widened significantly over the past few months, and the East/Southeast Asian price spread […]
Ken Simonson, self-proclaimed optimist and chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America, offered a fairly pessimistic forecast for the construction sector during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat. Real GDP fell 4.8 percent in the first quarter due to the coronavirus shutdowns, he said, the worst quarterly contraction since 2008. “I consider myself an incurable […]
“The scrap market is almost certainly going to go sideways if not higher in May due to the extreme supply squeeze we have seen this month,” said CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley. Ferrous scrap prices weakened for much of the first quarter, punctuated by a $30-50 per ton decrease in April. But May scrap prices […]