Currency update August 22nd 2013. The Federal Reserve publishes a trade weighted index of the value of the US dollar against a basket of the currencies of our major trading partners on a daily and monthly basis. This is referred to as the Broad Index. The Broad Index appreciated strongly in the 3rd Quarter of […]
Financial Markets: When I last wrote, I mentioned that the SP 500 was likely headed to 1720 before a retracement and then an eventual rally up the 1775 zone. Well the SP 500 reached 1709 on August 2nd from which we have since retraced to 1640 yesterday. We settled today at 1657. In this retracement […]
The erosion of the rupee brought the currency to a new record low on Monday at 62.76 to the U.S. dollar. A growing deficit at 4.8 percent of the GDP is blamed for the currency weakness in India that some say may be the country’s worst financial crisis in decades. The Royal Bank of […]
Chinese imports of iron ore in July were 73,140,000 metric tons, an increase of 17.4 percent from the previous month and an increase of 26.4 percent from July 2012. Year to date iron ore imports are at 457,230,000 MT through June. July imports of steel scrap were 280,000 MT, down 26.3 percent from June and […]
The three month moving average of global production in July was unchanged from June at an annual rate of 1.596 billion tons. Capacity utilization was 77.5 percent (Figure 1). For the July data, the World Steel Association increased the global capacity to 2.06 billion tons which reduced the capacity utilization value back to Q3 last […]
Iron ore prices continue to rise this month despite forecasts for a sharp correction in the last half of the year. The Steel Index reported 62% iron ore fines at Tianjin Port on August 14 was at a five month high of $142.8—a meteoric rise of more than 28 percent from $110.9/dry tonne on June […]
U.S. Midwest #1 Busheling Ferrous Scrap (AMM) Typically Quiet Mid-Month Market While the HRC futures market is experiencing a summer lull, the AMM Busheling contract has been virtually non-existent the past few weeks. After the physical market for busheling priced sideways this month the futures market has not reacted. It seems that the usual pattern […]
The domestic steel mills paid more for their scrap during the month of July than the month prior. The higher scrap inputs were one reason behind the domestic mills announcing more price increases as the month progressed. Spot iron ore (China) pricing rose during the month of July and ended the month with 62% Fe […]
Written by: Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals TSI Iron Ore: Prices Up, Up and Away… Iron Ore over the past few weeks remains a true bright spot in the commodities complex as stronger than expected summer steel demand in China has driven prices to highs not seen in months and monthly shipments […]
Written by: Damon Sun, Daido International The Far East markets will be rather quiet this week. Finished demand is still rather poor. Mills were able to lift construction steel prices up about $10/mt, but scrap prices moved up $20/mt. Rebar prices in Taiwan and in S. E. Asia have retreated/sideways from last week and […]
Severstal announced that International Iron Beneficiation Group Ltd. (IIGB) has launched a study into the feasibility of locating a granulated iron facility in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Severstal is also considering locations in Quebec, Minnesota, Kentucky and Indiana. The iron facility would use an innovative process that converts superfine iron ore into metallic iron units without […]
U.S. Midwest #1 Busheling Ferrous Scrap (AMM) Prices Drop as an April Pullback Looks Likely After prices for March settled up $40+ the market for April already is starting to shape up significantly weaker. Dealers succeeded in pushing up prices last month but currently it looks like April will be down at least $20 t […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Iron Ore slid this week to its lowest level since mid-December. As of March 15, ore price at Tianjin Port reported by The Steel Index was $134.6 /dry tonne (Fe62%)—a drop of 8 percent in one week. Coking coal fell as well, dropping to $161 a tonne on March 14 from […]
The following article is from one of our close trading sources located in Asia. This person is actively trading iron ore and ferrous scrap into China and is also trading steel out of China into Europe. He is able to provide us a view of the Asian market not normally seen by outsiders. Here is […]
Written by: Andre Marshall, Crunchrisk LLC The S&P 500 market today was higher still up to 1563 on the index. As I mentioned our long awaited target was 1542, but as the all time high was 1572 it was hard to imagine that the market would just turn back and correct being only 30 points from […]
Our SMU Price Momentum Indicator continues to be at Neutral and has been for 14 weeks. We do not yet see enough momentum to cause prices to rise or fall quickly. The market appears to be in a slightly over-supplied basis and demand – at the moment – is flat. Not dead by any means, […]
Written by: Sandy Williams This year Nucor plans to spend $280 million on its Louisiana DRI facility and approximately $260 million towards its natural gas related investments. Essar Steel Minnesota is in talks to build a joint venture DRI plant. Voestalpine and Northstar Bluescope Steel are both considering DRI facilities. Severstal just postponed a DRI […]
A note to those attending the SBB/Platts North American Steel Conference in Chicago this week – take a moment to find Andre Marshall and Jack Marshall as well as Bradley Clark. Andre and Bradley take turns writing articles for Steel Market Update about the hot rolled, ferrous scrap, iron ore and billet futures markets. Andre […]
SMU asked those taking this week’s steel survey if the latest price announcement stood a better chance of having at least some of the increase being collected than the one announced six weeks prior. We presented the percentages in our last issue of Steel Market Update (SMU 3/6) and now we would like to provide […]
Written by: Damon Sun, Daido International The Far East and Asian markets are in a definite flux versus the USA market. I will preface my explanation with, the ferrous scrap markets in Asia increased in February first while the USA scrap markets were down in February. With that in mind, the scrap markets in North […]
Written by: Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals U.S. Midwest #1 Busheling Ferrous Scrap (AMM) Firm on Weather Concerns As the beginning of the month progresses the physical scrap market has begun to price higher lending impetus to the futures market to begin trading. After months of stagnant and softer busheling markets, March […]
Written by: Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals Well it certainly is beginning to feel like déjà vu all over again. Last week’s price hike announcements come during the same last week of the month as they did the previous month. They came after the spot price was trending down and after deals […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Iron ore had its biggest slide in seven weeks dropping 2.4 percent on Tuesday to $145.20 per dry metric ton (Fe 62) at the Chinese port of Tianjin (source: The Steel Index). Ore shipments out of Australia have been slowed by a series of seasonal hurricanes forcing sporadic port closures. Although […]
“No demand- it is like raising ticket prices to see a last place team.” – Service Center Domestic mill price increases have a way of touching the nerve of the steel community. Whenever there is a price increase announcement and Steel Market Update (SMU) conducts our next steel market survey – we tend to gather […]
Written by: Andre Marshall, Crunchrisk LLC So far on the SP we have made it as high as 1532 on Feb 19th only to have retrace back to 1490 area before rebounding the last two days to 1515-1520 area. The market is becoming a bit more volatile. Poor fundamentals and money chasing returns will provide for […]
Manufacturing companies reported service center spot prices as either stable (82 percent) or decreasing (18 percent) during our most recent SMU steel market survey. When compared to the results taken at the beginning of February we found no longer were any of the manufacturing companies reporting any attempts by the distributors to raise prices. In […]
Written by: Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals U.S. Midwest #1 Busheling Ferrous Scrap (AMM) Firm on Weather Concerns As the month has progressed sentiment is starting to fall solidify around the idea that busheling prices may rebound $10-20 in March. Worsening weather conditions in the Midwest and dealers trying to recoup last […]
CSN has been looking to expand their operations in the United States ever since they acquired the bankrupt Heartland Steel and turned it into CSN, LLC. The Terre Haute, Indiana rolling facility is capable of taking hot bands and converting them to either cold rolled or galvanized steel – with the vast majority of the […]
Written by: Brad Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals U.S. Midwest #1 Busheling Ferrous Scrap (AMM) Softens as Prices Drop 13.73 in February The physical market came in this week down $13.73 to $375.24 in line with expectations. Mill order book’s remain weak for the most part outside of auto industry demand (the major […]
Written by Sandy Williams Essar Steel Minnesota LLC announced it will supply 3.5 million metric tonnes of standard and fluxed iron ore pellets annually to ArcelorMittal North American operations. The agreement is for a ten year period and will commence during the second half of Essar’s fiscal year ending March 31, 2014. Essar Steel Minnesota, […]