Earlier today the U. S. Department of Commerce released the latest license data through the 1st of September. Based on license data August total steel imports will be 3.0 million net tons. If confirmed when the Final Census data is released August will be the lowest tonnage so far this year. When looking at flat […]
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 in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
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 […]
The article below is normally reserved for our Premium members, we felt it would be good to share with our Executive members also. We have two data sources for this report. These are the Federal Reserve and the Oanda forex trading platform. An explanation of these sources is given at the end of this report. […]
Essar Steel Algoma announced that first quarter FY 2016, ending June 30, 2015, closed with a positive EBITDA of CDN $12.4 million. Capacity utilization was at 90 percent and steel shipments of 632,000 tons were 19 percent higher year over year. Higher production and shipments, however, were unable to counter low pricing caused by dumped […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
The following article on the Asian ferrous scrap markets was written by contributing writer, Damon Sun of Daido International: Over the past 3 weeks, there has been an uptick on prices of HMS (heavy melt scrap) containerized from a low of $165/metric ton CFR to this Monday at $185/metric ton CFR basis Taiwan. In the […]
Out of curiosity SMU took a look at the galvanized steel imports from the five countries named in the corrosion resistant (CORE) antidumping trade suit filed by the domestic steel mills on June 3rd of this year. The countries are: China, India, Taiwan, South Korea and Italy. We took a look at the previous 3 […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released July Preliminary Census Data and updated the license data for the month of August. In the table below we have provided the details to the July numbers which indicates imports at 3,242,501 net tons or slightly higher than the 3.1 million net tons received during the month of June. […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) produces for our Premium level members a number of articles/analysis related to the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) data which is released on a monthly basis. One of the articles is our Service Center Inventories Apparent Excess/Deficit analysis. Our Apparent Excess/Deficit is the number of tons either over or under what […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of July 2015, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in July were 86,100,000 metric tons, an increase of 14.9 percent from the previous month and an increase of 4.3 percent […]
Following the exceptional rate of vehicle sales in the US in May the June rate fell from 17.8 million annualized to 17.2 million then bounced back to 17.5 million in July. This was the second best month of the year. Light trucks continued to pull ahead of automobiles. In July LT sales which includes crossovers […]
On Wednesday of this week the U.S. Department of Commerce updated license data for foreign steel imports for the months of July and August. Based on only 18 days worth of data, August imports are trending toward another 3.0 million net ton month. The current trend line is for total steel imports for August to […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our mid-August flat rolled steel market review this week. We received our final responses this afternoon and we are ready to report on a number of the subjects covered this week. Buyers and sellers of steel are of the opinion that the trade suits on hot rolled, cold rolled and […]
Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. This month we have revised our data back through 1994 to account for massive revisions to the G17 data. Incidentally this is why many analysts question government data out of China who never revise their historical information. The US sometimes revises data […]
US Steel announced Monday that it intends to permanently close its blast furnace and associated steelmaking operations at Fairfield Works in Alabama. Most of the flat-rolled finishing operations at Fairfield will also be shut down. About 1,100 employees will lose their jobs due to the closure. “We have made some difficult decisions over the last […]
SMU requested a comment from the president of Steelscape regarding the challenges the mill will face if their parent companies’ supply of hot rolled coil is potentially cut off. We received the following note regarding their sources of supply which are named in the hot rolled antidumping and countervailing duty petition filed last week: “I […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of June 2015 was 9,373,498 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. June supply […]
Net imports equals imports minus exports. We regard this as an important look at the overall trade picture and its effect on demand at the mill level. Figure 1 shows that net sheet product imports on a three month moving average (3MMA) basis in June continue to be more than double that which existed before […]
This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison showing the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce with analysis by SMU. Table 1 shows both […]
I was speaking with the owner of a manufacturing company late last week. He told me his company had a number of union plants and he has negotiated a number of union contracts over the past few years. “People don’t strike anymore,” he said, “unless someone puts a line in the sand and forces the […]
I was speaking with the owner of a manufacturing company late last week. He told me his company had a number of union plants and he has negotiated a number of union contracts over the past few years. “People don’t strike anymore,” he said, “unless someone puts a line in the sand and forces the […]
On Tuesday six steel mills located east of the Rocky Mountains filed an antidumping and countervailing duty petition against seven countries: Australia, Brazil, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom. What makes this suit of particular interest to those on the West Coast USA is the source supply for two […]
The following is commentary from the American Institute for International Steel. As is the case with all important issues, there are two sides to every story. 13 August 2015. Falls Church, VA. The recent announcement of the filing of new trade cases on hot-rolled steel and other steel products reminds us that there are multiple […]
The flat rolled steel trading community has been hit and hit hard by the filing of antidumping trade suits on galvanized, Galvalume (zinc-aluminum) . As one trader put it to us earlier this week, “Business as usual has been blown up for the traders.” A number of traders spoke to SMU about the scope of […]
We have two data sources for this report. These are the Federal Reserve and the Oanda forex trading platform. An explanation of these sources is given at the end of this report. Oanda is current every day but the Federal Reserve daily broad index (BI) is normally about eight days in arrears. As of August […]
Six domestic steel mills joined together to file a hot rolled trade suit today. This is now the third such suit since the filing against corrosion resistant (galvanized & zinc-aluminum or Galvalume) on June 3rd and the cold rolled petition of a couple of weeks ago. With the HR case the mills have hit the […]
Talking to steel buyers this week was like listening to a broken record, “It’s quiet, it’s quiet, it’s quiet….” There has been very little activity and nothing pushing the markets which is quite amazing when you consider the domestic mills have filed three trade cases and are coming up on the September 1st deadline for […]
The Department of Commerce announced on August 11 the initiation of an antidumping investigation into imports of heavy walled rectangular welded carbon steel pipe and tubes from Korea, Mexico and Turkey and a countervailing duty investigation of imports from Turkey. The petition for the investigation was brought forth by Atlas Tube (a division of JMC […]
China made a surprise devaluation of its currency today to bolster its faltering economy. The 2 percent devaluation of the yuan will make imports to China more expensive but will make exports more attractive to international traders. The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) issued a statement today concerning today’s currency move by the Chinese […]