The flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update saw prices as being relatively flat this past week with the exception of Platts which is playing catch-up as they move their prices to be more in line with the other indexes. SMU kept all of our indices the same as the prior week as […]
Due to the Labor Day Holiday in the United States, Steel Market Update did not produce our Comparison Price Indices article on Sunday evening. Since many of our readers look forward to this information we are publishing last week’s numbers this evening. Hot rolled coil was dropped below $450 per ton on two indexes – […]
The following article on the futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our instructor for our Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II workshops. Andre attended the SMU Steel Summit Conference on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week in Atlanta. Here are his comments about both the […]
Virtually all of the indexes followed by Steel Market Update have begun to note the falling prices on flat rolled steels in North America. Benchmark hot rolled continues to be the most volatile product, dropping by as much as $16 per ton according to SteelBenchmarker (who only reports prices twice per month) and even Platts, […]
Our Steel Buyers Sentiment Index dropped for the second month in a row, however, our 3-month-moving-average rose slightly. Our Sentiment Index has been trailing what we reported during 2014 as business growth has been tempered this year versus last. Flat rolled steel prices dropped slightly from the end of last month through the end of […]
With the exception of Platts, all of the other indexes reporting (and followed by SMU) saw flat rolled products as losing ground this past week. Steel Market Update (SMU) is leading the way with their benchmark hot rolled coil (HRC) average dropping by $10 per ton to $450 per ton. This is $5 higher than […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: Oh boy we had a 48 […]
The negative numbers are starting to appear and SMU is hearing from steel buyers that weakness is creeping back into the markets, if only over the short term. However, not all of the indices followed by Steel Market Update saw the market as weakening at all. SteelBenchmarker, in particular, reported bullish results with all of […]
Flat rolled steel prices barely moved this past week according to the steel price indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Hot rolled price averaged $466 per ton with SMU and Platts at $465 and CRU at $467 per ton. Cold rolled was one product where we saw a split between SMU ($580), Platts ($585) and […]
In the first six months of this year bulk scrap exports were 6,893,000 metric tonnes for an annual rate of 13,786,000 tonnes, down by 9.1 percent from the first six months of last year. The tonnages shown in Figure 1 are based on three month moving averages for 2015 and on the twelve month monthly […]
Flat rolled steel prices, and the momentum associated with steel price movement, have been stuck for quite some time as you can see by our SMU Price Momentum at the top of the table below. As a result, our benchmark hot rolled price average is $3 per ton higher than what we reported at the […]
Benchmark hot rolled slip a little this past week according to Steel Market Update and CRU, while Platts kept their hot rolled number the same (they haven’t moved in over a month). SteelBenchmarker reported prices and their hot rolled number was up $4 per ton. When all of that was said and done the average […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: Well we did indeed put in […]
Flat rolled steel prices saw little movement this past week in benchmark hot rolled but, we did see some cracks in the “shadow” effect as the spreads between CRU and the other indexes started to widen. These small gyrations in the numbers in any one week may be due to what is being collected and […]
On Friday, Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Higher to Neutral. Now why did we go and do that? We have been stuck in a very tight trading range on most flat rolled steels since late April of this year. Benchmark hot rolled, which is used by most in the […]
Stability is perhaps the most frightening for steel buyers and sellers alike. At least there is an expectation of good times (or bad) when prices are moving on a weekly basis in one direction or the other. What we have seen since the middle of May is a slight “jiggle” as prices bounce up and […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: No Grexit worries are going to […]
Up, down and sideways is how to describe the various flat rolled price indexes this past week. Hot rolled prices averaged $465, down $1 from the week prior. However, the SMU index was up $5 per ton to $470, CRU was down $7 per ton to $461 and Platts remained stationary at $465 per ton […]
Since SMU did not publish on Sunday evening we wanted to get the information regarding flat rolled steel price indices from last week. We saw prices tighten up amongst the various indexes which reported pricing last week (SMU, CRU and Platts). However, as with the week before, price momentum was flat going into the 4th […]
June ended the same way it started with our SMU Price Momentum Indicator pointing toward higher flat rolled steel prices. This is now the second month in a row where our Momentum Indicator has been pointing up. Our Future Steel Buyers Sentiment Index averaged +61.5 for the month of June. However, the last report we […]
Benchmark hot rolled prices remain stuck at $465(ish) according to the four flat rolled steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Platts rose $3 last week and reported $465 per ton HRC as did Steel Market Update, which was unchanged from the prior week. CRU was down $3 per ton to $460 per ton and […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: On the S&P 500 we are […]
Hot rolled coil prices appear to be stuck in the $462 to $465 range. We have seen very little movement on HRC since the move made after the first price increase announcement back on April 28th. Cold rolled, which SMU saw as being up $10 this past week, went nowhere according to Platts and CRU […]
SMU Sentiment Index Jumps Since our last flat rolled steel market analysis and evaluation of how buyers and sellers of steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful both three to six months from now (Future) as well as in today’s economic environment (Current), we have had a second price increase and a dumping […]
With the price increase announcements and the filing of a trade case against coated products we saw galvanized and Galvalume prices move higher by double digits this past week. Galvanized increased by $15 per ton according to SMU and $16 per ton according to CRU. Galvalume prices moved higher by $10 per ton. When looking […]
An executive with a large service center group penned us some thoughts about the market (prior to the SSAB plate price increase) on Wednesday of this past week. “I was surprised at the June import-rate figures, with the forecast/possibility of 3+ million tons. It doesn’t seem like imports are falling as fast as expected for […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: We continue to be the best […]
Flat rolled steel prices have stabilized over the past couple of weeks, according to our analysis of the various steel indexes we follow on a regular basis. The expectation is with the increase in scrap prices and the filing of the anti-dumping suit against China, South Korea, India, Taiwan and Italy will bring a new […]
Last month, Alfred (Al) Plummer, Sales Manager for Hanwa American Corporation, made a presentation about the steel industry at a regional meeting of the Association of Steel Distributors (ASD). Over the past few days Mr. Plummer has been communicating with Steel Market Update and we thought that the items being discussed should be of interest […]
Today SMU is not only going to discuss where flat rolled steel prices were this past week based on our analysis of steel pricing from our steel index as well as CRU, Platts and SteelBenchmarker, we are also going to discuss price momentum which our SMU Price Momentum Indicator currently points to higher prices over […]