Tag: final thoughts

SMU's ferrous scrap survey celebrates its one-year anniversary this month.

The Tampa Steel Conference will kick off just a few days after the Super Bowl, and I think it’s fair to say that we could be reacting to market developments in real time – again.

At SMU, we ask the big questions: To be or not to be? Hot band at a grand? On the one hand, whether hot-rolled coil price can or can’t go above $1,000 per short (st) is a silly argument. It’s just a number. On the other hand, round numbers are something that we tend to fixate on. They can be psychologically important to a market – even if they shouldn’t be.

President Donald Trump in a post on Truth Social threatened to impose 100% tariffs on all exports from Canada into the US. It would be boastful (but not entirely inaccurate) to say you read it in SMU and heard it on Aluminum Market Update (AMU) first.

A crossword featuring clues about SMU's Tampa Steel Conference 2026.

Does the level of geopolitical uncertainty get to the point where it impacts not only the stock market but also the broader steel market? Could we see a repeat of Liberation Day, or will the news cycle move on to something else by the end of the week? I don't pretend to know what might happen in Davos. Suffice it to say, it’s going to be a newsy week.

We are officially under 30 days away from SMU's Tampa Steel Conference. And things are really starting to heat up. Well, at least the temperatures in Florida are staying balmy while much of the rest of the country maintains a chill.

Reflections on visiting Venezuela in a different era.

A sneak peek at the first survey results of 2026.

The US steel market has gotten off to a fast start. Prices are up as lead times extend. And the news is coming in hot too.

We are quickly approaching the one-month countdown to the 2026 Tampa Steel Conference. Let's look at Tampa 2025 to see what people were saying and how it applies to this year.

This is the final Final Thoughts of 2025. In fact, let's throw in the final Final Thoughts of the first half of the 2020s. End of year. Mid-decade. What does it all mean?

It's that time of year, when we look back at where we've been and forward to what the new year might bring. So, before we look forward to 2026, let’s take a quick look back at 2025.

A look at possible scenarios that could be announced during SMU's Tampa Steel Conference.

Sheet prices mostly ticked higher again this week. And the reasons shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone who has been reading SMU lately.

Canadian steelmaker Algoma's plans to bring forward the scheduled full transition to electric-arc furnace (EAF) steel production by one year merits a revisit. Why? Because of its potential impact on ferrous scrap flows between the US and Canada.

There was a palpable sense of optimism among folks at the HARDI conference about demand from data centers. In other words, around the physical infrastructure – which also includes energy transmission - needed to feed the AI boom. The big question: Could demand from data and AI be far stronger than the market yet realizes?

Let's take a look inside the last SMU Scrap Survey of 2025.

During the summer of 1989, I made a journey in search of recoverable scrap metal to a place I only studied in history books and in military training.

It's important to keep in mind - maybe especially for those of us in the US - that the rest of the world can act too. And I think we're already seeing signs of that action, or at least that's been my takeaway from some of SMU's recent reporting and from Community Chat webinars for both SMU and AMU.

The price hike parade that got underway in earnest in November looks set to continue in December. And it's been joined by, well, just about everybody.

You might be looking forward to some Black Friday deals. But I wouldn't expect many, at least when it comes to flat-rolled steel.

Recollections of better days in Ukraine.

We’ve been writing a lot about steel prices lately and what might happen with President Trump’s trade and tariff policy. I’d like to take a little break from that today. Instead, I'll focus instead on something I always find exciting and inspiring – namely, new mills.

Sheet prices are in the middle of one of their most sustained rallies since the first quarter, and this time in the absence of any tariff or trade policy shocks.

Rising prices and stable demand is not a bad way to slide into the ending of 2025.

Scrap keeps on trucking, shutdown or not.

Anyone standing near the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass in Phoenix, Az undoubtedly felt a kinetic charge this week. Professionals from coast-to-coast convened in the posh desert oasis for the Association of Women in the Metals Industry (AMWI) 2025 conference. Amidst the metals crowd were those leading teams and organizations through the heat of the 2025 moment.  

Nippon Steel is making good on the big capex promises it made to secure its purchase of United States Steel Corp. This week, the Japanese company and American steelmaker together unveiled various capital investments they plan to make across U.S. Steel’s footprint.

Could 2026 be the year when tariffs headwinds clear?