The U.S. Department of Commerce released license data through today, December 2, 2015. Based on the latest data, there were 3,938,330 net tons of steel import license requests for the month of November. This does not mean that the U.S. actually received 3.9 million tons of steel imports during the month of November, but it […]
Last week Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our mid-November flat rolled steel market survey. We invited approximately 600 companies to participate representing manufacturing, steel service centers, trading companies, steel mills, toll processors and suppliers to the steel industry. Last week’s participation mix was very similar to what we see on a regular basis with 46 […]
Production in October on a tons per day basis was 4.411 million tons, down from 4.485 in September. This was the fourth month since February when production was <4.5 million metric tons per day. October had one more production day than September and the month’s total increased from 134.562 million to 136.838. Since January 2008 […]
The world’s largest steel trader, Duferco International Trading Holding, confirmed Tuesday it will sell a majority stake to China’s Hebei Iron & Steel Group. The deal is valued at approximately $400 million according to China News Service. The agreement, signed on Tuesday, is aimed at enhancing the ability of China’s largest steel company to sell […]
I noticed one of the analysts had reported CSN out of Brazil as shipping between 300,000-500,000 tons of flat rolled steel in the 4th Quarter 2014 into the United States. Our sources have advised us that the number is closer to 130,000 tons with a portion of the tons going directly to the CSN mill […]
Explanation of data sources: The broad index is published by the Federal Reserve on both a daily and monthly basis. It is a weighted average of the foreign exchange values of the U.S. dollar against the currencies of a large group of major U.S. trading partners. The index weights, which change over time, are derived […]
Freight shipments, especially imports, are on the climb as the nation looks toward an economically stronger holiday season. The Cass Freight Index, which follows freight expenditures and shipment volumes, showed shipments increased in October by 3.3 percent year over year but fell 0.9 percent on a monthly basis. The slide, says Cass Information Systems, is […]
In the first nine months of 2014, scrap exports totaled 11,586,000 tonnes, down by 19.4 percent from the same period in 2013. In the single month of September exports were 1,163,489 tonnes, this was the second lowest month of the year following August which was the highest month. That’s why, in most cases, SMU uses […]
Apparent steel supply for September was 10,305,707 net tons, the third biggest month since the beginning of the Great Recession. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic shipments and finished US imports and subtracting total US exports. Note that our Premium member analysis breaks down apparent steel supply by flat and long products. September […]
Andre Marshall, well known commodity futures trader, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and instructor for our Managing Price Risk I and II workshops has written today’s HRC futures article. Today he comments on the financial markets, steel, iron ore and ferrous scrap markets. Financial Markets: All time highs again in the stock markets. We are […]
Below is a press release issued by the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) regarding September steel exports. Falls Church, VA. November 6, 2014. The United States’ steel exports declined slightly in September, though they remained just above their level of a year earlier. Exports dipped 1.4 percent from August to 1.03 million net tons. […]
China has a number of taxes on steel, both domestically and for exports. This is one of the misunderstandings many countries have (including the United States). We have been speaking about the subject with one of our key Asian trading contacts over the past few days as we asked about possible suspension of Boron added […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of September 2014, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in September were 84,695,000 metric tons, an increase of 13.1 percent from the previous month and an increase of 13.6 percent […]
Global manufacturing continued to expand for the 23rd successive month according to JP Morgan and Markit. The JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI registered 52.2 in October, unchanged from September. “The global PMI continues to signal 3-4% annualized gains in manufacturing output as we head towards year-end,” said David Hensley, Director of Global Economics Coordination at […]
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 has been increased by one this month to thirty six. We have added the price of coking coal FOB the Australian East Coast to the raw […]
Today’s hot rolled coil and ferrous scrap futures article is written by Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading at Kataman Metals. The market seems to have bottomed out with the CRU coming in at $640 yesterday. Positive sentiment has outweighed any negatives in the market with AK Steel recently announcing a price hike of $20/ton […]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the third estimate of Q3 2014 Annual Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts on Thursday. The annualized growth rate in the third quarter was 3.50 percent which was down from 4.51 percent in Q2 but still exceeded most analysts’ expectations. GDP is measured and reported in […]
Commercial Metals Company (CMC) reported net earnings of $34.9 million for its fourth quarter ending August 31, 2014. Net sales increased 12 percent year over year to $1.9 billion. For the full fiscal year 2014, net earnings were 115.6 million on net sales of 7 billion. In comparison, FY 2013 net earnings were 77.3 million […]
Esmark Inc has confirmed its interest in acquiring all the assets of Serbian government-owned steel facility Zelezara Smederevo, a producer of steel, hot-rolled and cold-rolled products, and tin plate-coated products serving customers in Central Europe. Esmark Inc. has formed Esmark Europe to lead mill operations, finance, and commercial sales if the bid is successful. During a […]
As expected, the Russian hot rolled tonnage won’t be missed for very long as Brazil, Turkey and other countries look to fill the void. The upside for buyers is the replacement mills produce a superior product to what was coming in from Russia. At the moment we are being advised by current Russian buyers that […]
MID-SHIP Group reports that the two biggest factors impacting the dry cargo freight market right now are U.S. and South American agricultural products and Chinese imports and exports. Expectations for strong exports of agricultural products are high but not much has hit the export market yet. Iron ore imports into China have slowly started to […]
Paul Lowrey of Steel Research Associates was discussing the size of the market segments with SMU back in September during our Steel Summit Conference in Atlanta. He was making sure that we were aware that the energy markets are now the largest steel consuming segment of the steel industry, especially if you take into consideration […]
Everyone is aware of the high level of flat rolled imports in 2014 – especially cold rolled and coated products. So, where does 2014 rank on a historical basis? It is on pace to be the third highest year on record. We have 8 months of actual import data on the books. August year-to-date flat […]
Figure 1 shows historical gas and oil prices since January 2000. The daily spot price of West Texas Intermediate fell below $100 in August and by October 14th was down to $81.72, the latest daily figure available from the Energy Information Administration, (EIA.) Brent closed at $86.36 on the same day. The EIA has calculated […]
US pipe producers filed dumping and countervailing duty petitions on Line Pipe against producers in Korea and Turkey, alleging dumping margins of 16 percent against Turkey and from 58 percent to 221 percent against Korea (the alleged CVD margins are not known or not published at this time). This comes relatively shortly after the trade case […]
The following article was produced by SMU contributing writer Peter Wright for our Premium level members. However, we felt that the current strengthening trend of the U.S. dollar is important for all of our readers to understand as it is impacting both commodity and steel prices and will continue to do so in the future. […]
We are in a very interesting market as many factors are influencing domestic scrap and steel prices. We discuss currency issues in tonight’s issue as the appreciating dollar means less competitive exports out of the United States but it also makes foreign steel imports more attractive to buyers. We have falling iron ore (which is […]
Following the post-recession recovery, shipments of hot rolled steel from US mills to domestic locations have been trending in a range for three years. Shipments of hot dipped galvanized sheet and strip declined strongly in Q2 through Q4 2012 and have climbed slightly in 2014. Cold rolled shipments have shown little direction for almost two […]
Contributing writer, Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC, provides a glimpse at the financial, copper, steel (hot rolled coil), iron ore and scrap markets for our readers. Mr. Marshall is well known within the futures community and is the instructor for our Managing Price Risk I & II workshops. Financial Markets: Rethinking Island Mentality The […]
In the first eight months of 2014, scrap exports totaled 10,404,531 metric tons, down by 18.7 percent from the same period in 2013. In the single month of August exports were 1,575,716 tonnes, this was the highest volume month of the year, beating out May by 26,000 tons. Figure 1 shows that the three month […]