Steel Market Update did not rush to break through the $600 barrier for hot rolled coil. We made a conscious decision that due to the Holidays we wanted to wait until this week to make sure we had as many data points as possible before breaking through $600. We are aware that some of our […]
There is one word that comes to mind when trying to write about the status of steel prices: quiet. All is quiet as the few buyers that remain in their offices are spending precious little time buying new steel. With limited information available we have chosen to keep our price ranges and indices the same […]
Steel buyers were few and far between this week as everyone prepares for Christmas and Hanukkah holiday celebrations. Even so, those who were working this week and responding to our queries reported aggressive steel mills on all flat rolled products. We have seen erosion at the upper end of our range on all products and […]
The good news for the consumer is gasoline prices are closing in on $2.00 per gallon in many areas of the country. The bad news for the steel industry is the drop in oil prices means a slowdown in new drilling, one of the major users of hot rolled coil. The good news for buyers […]
Lead times at the domestic steel mills continue to be shorter than what we saw this time last year (when prices were rising). The average lead time for benchmark hot rolled coil dropped to an average of 3.53 weeks based on the results from this week’s SMU flat rolled steel market survey. As you can […]
We saw prices slipping in hot rolled and cold rolled steels over the past seven days. We are seeing offers on benchmark hot rolled below the $600 per ton level. One service center who is usually a coated only buyer told SMU that they purchased a small amount of hot rolled and they had offers […]
Nucor Corporation expects a “moderate” decrease in earnings in the fourth quarter along with a seasonal drop in operating performance. In the company’s fourth quarter earnings guidance, Nucor noted that exceptionally high import levels have put pressure on steel production and margins. A larger than expected decrease in outside shipments is expected in the fourth […]
All of the flat rolled steel price indices followed by Steel Market Update moved lower this past week. Based on performance and their ability to keep up with the markets, the three key indices are SMU, CRU and Platts which reported benchmark hot rolled price averages as $615, $614 and $615 per ton, respectively. SteelBenchmarker […]
Today’s hot rolled, ferrous scrap and iron ore futures article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and the instructor for Steel Market Update’s Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II workshops. Along with HRC, iron ore and BUS trading. Andre also discusses the S&P 500, copper and crude […]
US Steel is trying to raise flat rolled steel prices as lead times on hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized slip into the 1st Quarter 2015. The General Manager of North American Flat-Rolled Marketing at US Steel sent an internal memo to the General Managers of Sales for the mill regarding current market conditions and […]
I was advis ed today that Nucor had reduced their pricing on beams by $40 per ton in order to compete with foreign beam offers. The question then became what are the mills doing to blunt the impact of foreign steel offers of flat rolled products into the United States? As we reported on Tuesday, […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to erode this week as buyers reported an expansion of discounted offers coupled with short mill lead times. Many steel buyers are telling Steel Market Update that their inventories are relatively high, there are new foreign offers out there at “good” prices and that they can sit back and wait […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our early December flat rolled steel market analysis this week. As part of the survey process, SMU asks those responding questions about flat rolled steel mill lead times. From their responses we create our average lead time for the industry by product. This allows us the ability to evaluate whether […]
Based strictly on the results from our Steel Market Update flat rolled market survey results, domestic steel mills are willing to negotiate prices on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume products. This is something that we see on a regular basis as lead times slip and the need for orders increases at the domestic […]
One of the biggest issues that has been holding the domestic steel mill lead times (and prices) in check during calendar year 2014 is the amount of foreign steel coming into the United States. SMU recently reported the U.S. received 4.4 million net tons of imports during the month of October and license data is […]
It has now been five weeks (October 28th) since AK Steel became the first domestic steel mill to announce a price increase on flat rolled steel. The relatively modest $20 per ton move was, in many steel buyers’ opinions, meant to stem the decline in steel prices. At that point in time benchmark hot rolled […]
Flat rolled steel prices began slipping once again as our benchmark hot rolled average broke through the $630 mark for the first time since the middle of March. The new average is now at the lowest level for the calendar year (tied with mid-March) and is poised to set a new low point for the […]
The Institute of Supply Management released their November report on December 2nd and after the October surprise on the upside, the index slid back slightly from 59.0 to 58.7. However, this is still the third best result of the year. Any number >50 indicates expansion and this was the eighteenth straight month for which this […]
A member of the financial community contacted me earlier today asking about rumors of a new price increase by the domestic steel mills as we move into January 2015. He stated that another steel-related publication had quoted a service center as believing price announcements would be coming soon. First, I have not heard directly from […]
It has been a very quiet week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the U.S. on Thursday. A number of service centers advised SMU that the number of inquiries had dramatically fallen off and there isn’t much need to buy steel at this time. The question isn’t so much where are prices this week […]
Last year at this time hot rolled steel prices averaged $670 per ton and were close to the peak for the year which was $680 per ton (SMU index HRC average). Lead times peaked the first week in December on all flat rolled with the exception of Galvalume. From mid-December 2013 until the middle of […]
Today’s hot rolled, ferrous scrap and iron ore futures article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and the instructor for Steel Market Update’s Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II workshops. Along with HRC, iron ore and BUS trading Andre also discusses the S&P 500, copper and crude […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) is seeing flat rolled steel prices as drifting at this time. We saw slight adjustments in both the upper and lower end of our range on hot rolled compressing our range. Cold rolled was up by $5 per ton while galvanized was unchanged and Galvalume was lower. Market players are sitting […]
Late last week Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our galvanized range to take into consideration the growing number of base prices reaching down to the $35.00/cwt level. Our galvanized range is now $35.00/cwt-$38.00/cwt for new spot orders. Over the weekend we adjusted our hot rolled range to reflect the lower numbers we have been collecting […]
Steel Market Update is revising our galvanized and Galvalume price ranges and averages to accommodate new information that we have been gathering this week. A number of steel buyers and at least one steel mill advised us that the low end of our ranges on these two products were not representative of the deals being […]
We have been getting mixed messages from steel buyers this week regarding the status of the increase announcements and spot flat rolled steel prices. A number of buyers are reporting the mills as pushing the new numbers while others are reporting prices as remaining the same as they were one week ago. One thing that […]
Flat rolled steel prices began to stabilize this past week after having peaked in the middle of August at $675 per ton (hot rolled) and then slowly sliding to a low of $630 per ton during the week ending November 1, 2014. The SMU HRC average actually rose slightly to $635 per ton this past […]
One of the items Steel Market Update is watching closely is steel mill lead times. This is especially true after price increases have been announced. Typically, we see lead times move out (extend) after a price announcement has been made. This is due to the rush to get orders quoted prior to the increase announcement […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our early November flat rolled steel market survey this week. We invited approximately 600 companies to participate in the process. Of those participating 44 percent were manufacturing companies and 44 percent were steel service centers. The balance of the respondents was comprised of 6 percent trading companies, 5 percent steel […]
AK Steel, US Steel, Nucor (verbal) and ArcelorMittal all made spot price adjustments this past week. A number of the smaller mills are holding back or have lead times out into 2015 and their order books are closed. Steel Market Update Price Momentum Indicator continues to point toward Neutral meaning prices could be in transition […]