Optimism waned this week as steel buyers and sellers toiled over price announcements, demand questions and a heightened sense of insecurity regarding their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment. Based on the results from our just completed steel market survey, SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index dropped 6 points to +15 from […]
Large steel buyers with whom Steel Market Update had direct contact with over the past few working days paint a picture of the domestic mills still uncomfortable leading on pricing. Although that may be changing as word starts to spread on the newest scrap pricing. We saw a widening of the range on hot rolled […]
On Monday Steel Market Update will begin our next steel market survey. This will be the first for the month of March. Invitations should go out at approximately 8 AM ET. This will be an interesting week as we watch scrap prices, mill lead times and for evidence that the domestic mills will be serious […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Activity in the manufacturing sector continued to improve in February according the latest Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing Report on Business. The February PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) registered at 54.2, indicating growth in the manufacturing sector for the third consecutive month since its drop below the neutral point to 49.9 in […]
The Chicago Purchasing Managers reported the Chicago Business Barometer rose again, up 1.2 points to 56.8, its highest level since last March. There was improvement in New Orders, Order Backlogs, and Supplier Deliveries while Production and Employment expanded at a slower pace. New orders reported its third consecutive monthly gain and 11-month high while order […]
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 […]
Frustration appears to be running high as buyers and sellers try to hold on to the gains (or to the floor) made a few weeks ago. Despite their order books being weak, domestic mills do not seem willing to go below (or in many cases match) their previous deal. However, if they are not willing […]
Split on Increase, Lead Times, Sentiment for Sideways Pricing – Market has Little Direction Steel Market Update (SMU) continues to set a new record each week we hold our Price Momentum Indicator at Neutral. The longest previous record for a Neutral indication for market price direction was five weeks (back in late May/June 2011) for […]
Written by: John Packard, Publisher An important piece of the value behind Steel Market Update is based on the relationships I developed during my 31 year tenure in the flat rolled steel business. Over that period of time I interacted with hundreds of companies in various capacities but primarily in a sales or management function. […]
Based on the results of this week’s survey, lead times on hot rolled and cold rolled slid slightly compared to where they were at the beginning of the month. We found aluminized to have dropped by slightly more than half a week from 6.40 weeks down to 5.83 weeks while galvanized lead times actually increased […]
The HARDI wholesalers who participate in the distribution of galvanized steel into the HVAC industry held their monthly conference call this morning to discuss the steel market. At the time of the last call held in late January, AK Steel had just announced a $40 per ton price increase and the HARDI members were waiting […]
Flat rolled steel prices remained – well, flat – this week compared to one week ago. Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Indicator is now in its 12th week at Neutral as we watch flat rolled steel prices drift without any real pressure to move prices higher, or lower at this time. Here is how […]
Dear Editor, While not currently a subscriber I did receive your February 13th newsletter earlier this morning. I’ve been active in the steel industry out here on the west coast since 1974 and since you’ve invited comments I’d like to make a few. You note that a lack of service center support for mill increases […]
In one corner we have ArcelorMittal scratching and clawing and trying to hold on to at least a portion of their price increase. One week ago they were trying to collect $650. As the week progressed the number slipped a bit. This week…well, it slipped some more. In the other corner we have a group […]
Written by: John Packard Steel Market Update did not move our Price Momentum Indicator out of Neutral where we have been “stuck” for the past 10 – now going on 11 weeks. The market lacks clear direction – or maybe a better way to view it is the market lacks personality. This is perhaps best […]
Based on the results of this week’s SMU steel market survey, lead times have moved out slightly at the domestic steel mills compared to where they were during the middle of January. We are now seeing hot rolled lead times averaging 3.5 weeks, cold rolled and galvanized at just over 5 weeks and Galvalume at […]
Even as prices “firm” a bit from where they were one week ago, our SMU Price Momentum Indicator remains stuck in Neutral for the 10th consecutive week due to the following factors. We always prefer to give the domestic mills an opportunity to sell their price increases into the marketplace, so we automatically move to […]
The bottom end of our range exhibited some “tightening” over the past week – although not as much as one might expect in light of the size of the price increase announcements made by the domestic mills. Based on survey results the bottom end of the range for our benchmark hot rolled coil is no […]
Written by: Sandy Williams The New Year began with promise for U.S. manufacturers. The ISM Manufacturing PMI registered 53.1 percent in January signaling expansion in the manufacturing sector for the second consecutive month and increasing 2.9 percent from December’s seasonally adjusted rate of 50.2. The overall economy rose for the 44th consecutive month according to […]
Written by: Sandy Williams The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index registered 55.6 in January, a 5.6 point increase from last month and the highest level since April 2012. Business Activity surged in production to 60.9 and new orders to 58.2, both 10 month highs. Employment registered 58.0, up 4.2 points from December and the largest gain […]
As we made our rounds over the past few days we found a number of the smaller mills who had not yet announced price increases and were continuing to collect orders at the previous prices. We also found a few instances of larger mills continuing to collect prices at the lower end of our scale […]
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 […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) participates in a monthly conference call with HARDI wholesalers who sell galvanized sheet and coil into the HVAC mechanical contractors and related industries for residential and commercial construction applications. The purpose of the call is to discuss steel trends which may impact their regional businesses – this includes domestic mill and […]
As was reported over the past week, Steel Market Update found a number of buyers of varying sizes able to purchase hot rolled coil below $600 in the spot market. We did not find every mill or every region participating in the erosion of the bottom end of our range. What we found is the […]
As Steel Market Update (SMU) checked with various market sources after the AK Steel price announcement we found most of the industry expecting the other domestic steel mills to follow the AK Steel pricing lead. At the same time, most buyers expect the net result to be an end to the current slide in pricing […]
Based on the weighted results from our most recent steel survey which was conducted this past week, SMU found lead times slipping slightly on all flat rolled products followed by our company. Benchmark hot rolled average lead times declined to 3.38 weeks and are much shorter than the 4.76 weeks measured by the SMU survey […]
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 […]
For the past seven weeks, Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Indicator has been stuck in “Neutral” waiting for something to push prices in one direction or another. When we made the adjustment the week of November 27, 2012 from Higher to Neutral our SMU range for hot rolled coil was $620-$660 per ton (average […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to drift slightly lower as buyers reported a tighter range than what we had seen one week ago. The top end of the range for all of the items declined between $10 and $20 per ton this past week. The net result being our averages adjusted lower by $5 to […]
Mill lead times shrunk on all but Galvalume products according to the results of our most recent SMU steel survey completed this past Friday. On a weighted average basis hot rolled lead times shrunk to 3.42 weeks, cold rolled to 5.25 weeks, galvanized to 5.33 weeks while Galvalume lengthened to 6.17 weeks. We provided the […]