The issue of excessive discounting against CRU and other index-based issues raised by ArcelorMittal in their price increase announcement are ones which Steel Market Update has been researching and which we began raising in our last steel market survey. During conversations with service centers, steel mills and end users we were catching frustrations with the […]
Written by: Andre Marshall, Crunchrisk Financial Markets The last of the obstacles to an improving economy, the debt ceiling and the spending cuts etc seem to be rolling over. The Republicans have cleverly put in a temporary debt ceiling increase covering us until May which will be after the budget talks in April and the […]
ArcelorMittal raised flat rolled spot prices on Wednesday and in the process took a shot at the rest of the industry (and perhaps themselves?) when they identified, “The market manipulation and discounting of the CRU has had a dampening effect on industry spot prices.” They then used the most recent index benchmark plus $45 to […]
Benchmark hot rolled coil (HRC) declined across each of the indexes watched by Steel Market Update, as did each of the other flat rolled products. Steel Orbis took their numbers down the most after sitting at $620 on HRC and $720 on CRC for 9 weeks. SteelBenchmarker, which produces their numbers twice per month, and […]
On Tuesday, January 15th, Steel Market Update (SMU) began our second steel survey of the New Year. Our surveys are focused on the flat rolled steel market and are conducted by inviting slightly less than 700 companies who are asked to participate by invitation. Of those participating in last week’s survey 48 percent of the […]
Written by: Andre Marshall, Crunchrisk LLC Financial Markets On the equities markets we hit a new 5 year high reaching 1485 on SP 500 today. In this current rally you might recall our target point for this move is 1488 and so we may be near a point for a little retracement. If this current move […]
At the moment we have broken into two camps when it comes to hot rolled coil – the CRU and SteelBenchmarker (which did not report prices this past week) who both pegged their HRC prices in the mid-$630’s – and the rest of the indexes we follow on a regular basis and ourselves (SMU) who […]
Have tons to buy? Negotiate… What price you will pay for steel at the beginning of January will depend on a number of variables – but one thing is for certain – if you have tons to buy it is best to negotiate with your suppliers. At least that is what our sources have been […]
Platts may be providing a hint as to what we will see coming from the other indices as we enter a full week. SMU did see weakness in our steel survey but we have decided not to make any adjustments in our index until Tuesday evening since last week was 1) a short week and, […]
Financial Markets Who knew it was so easy, all the Republicans had to do was to agree to over $600 bln in tax increases, kick the can down the road on spending cuts by 2-3 months and voila!; No Fiscal Cliff! And with that the markets were off. The SP has gained 60 points in […]
Hot rolled coil average $655 per ton according to Steel Market Update (SMU) monthly average price assessments. SMU was $1 off the CRU ($656 per ton) monthly settlements against the CME HRC contract once all the numbers had been crunched. For those who are unaware, SMU publishes our indices on Tuesdays prior to the CRU […]
The month of December was best illustrated by the SMU Price Momentum Indicator which spent the entire month stuck in Neutral as flat rolled spot prices essentially moved sideways through the month. Whether using our index or the CRU price assessments, the monthly average on hot rolled was very close to where prices were measured […]