The Premium article below was originally produced for our Premium members on Wednesday afternoon. Over the last couple of days SMU has had conversations with a number of our members regarding our views on the construction markets. This is an analysis which was shared with our Premium level members yesterday and we have decided to […]
On Wednesday of this week I participated in the monthly HARDI conference call (see article in tonight’s newsletter). During the call one of the executives from an east coast HVAC wholesaler told the group that he didn’t believe prices could or would move much higher from here. I disagreed with him. One of the justifications […]
On Monday the U.S. Department of Commerce, responding to petitions from ArcelorMittal, Nucor, US Steel, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics and California Steel, initiated an inquiry of circumvention of the antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) orders against China. The probe will be for hot rolled and cold rolled substrate supplied by China to Vietnam for […]
(ArcelorMittal press release, 8 November 2016) – ArcelorMittal is expanding its global portfolio of automotive steels by introducing a new generation of advanced high strength steels (AHSS). These innovative steels include the launch of new press hardenable steels (PHS) Ductibor® 1000 and Usibor® 2000 – both of which are already available for OEM qualification testing […]
Accelerating production and new orders raised the JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI to 52.0 in October, its highest level in two years. Manufacturing conditions improved in 22 of the 31 nations surveyed. Those nations that contracted were primarily in Asia (South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Myanmar), said JP Morgan and IHS Markit, along […]
Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded at a faster rate in October, according to the latest Manufacturing ISM Report on Business. The PMI index, which covers manufacturing activity for the entire United States, registered 51.9, a 0.4 increase from September. A reading above 50 indicates expansion of the manufacturing economy and below 50 indicates […]
Economic activity in October lost some of the momentum gained in third quarter, according to the latest survey by MNI Indicators. The Chicago Business Barometer fell 3.6 points to a five month low of 50.6 in October. The three month moving average was at 52.1, down from 53.8 in September. Production dropped 5.4 points from […]
All eyes this week will be on the scrap dealers and their steel mill customers as they haggle over where ferrous scrap prices will trade for the month of November. The opinion of many in the steel industry is that as scrap prices increase, it will both support the flat rolled steel price announcements already […]
Metalforming companies are expecting a minor decline in business conditions during the next three months, according to the latest survey by the Precision Metalforming Association (PMA). Respondents in the October survey are expecting a drop in incoming orders and noted that shipping levels declined in in October. Lead times, compared with three months ago shortened […]
Manufacturing activity in the Tenth District expanded at a moderate pace in October, according to the latest survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. “This was the second consecutive month of rising factory activity in the Tenth District, the first time that has happened in nearly two years,” said Reserve Bank of Kansas […]
Orders for durable goods declined 0.1 percent in September after August orders were revised to a 0.3 percent increase. Economists had expected an increase in orders of between 0.1 and 0.2 percent. Volatility in the transportation equipment sector continued with orders decreasing 0.8 percent after two consecutive monthly increases. Excluding transportation, new orders were up […]
Manufacturing activity in the Fifth District slowed in October according to the Survey of Manufacturing Activity produced by Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The composite Index registered -4, improving from -8 in September and -11 in August. New orders and backlogs decreased in October but remained in negative numbers. The shipment index climbed from contraction […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and The Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a forecast to the HARDI members located in the United […]
With the end of October at hand, it is time for SMU to take another look at shipping conditions around the U.S. Seaborne MID-SHIP is seeing improvement in freight rates and fuel prices and an increase in period chartering activity for seaborne cargo. A surge in coal pricing in the past few weeks has resulted […]
We saw a single data point “bounce” this week in both the Current and Future SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Indexes. Does it mean anything significant? In our opinion it is too early to tell. Current Sentiment, which measures how buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful in […]
Since Monday of this week Steel Market Update has been conducting a survey of the flat rolled steel market place. During the process SMU probes about a number of key topics of importance to buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel. One of the areas we deem to be very important is the status of […]
The domestic steel mills in North America continue to be willing to negotiate spot steel prices on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume products according to those responding to this week’s Steel Market Update flat rolled market trends survey. It has now been a number of months since the mills were last in a […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum reported sales of $2.19 billion, down 0.8 percent from Q2 and down 4.4 percent from Q3 2015. Tons sold were down 4.9 percent from the previous quarter to 1,445,500 tons with average selling price per ton up 4.4 percent, sequentially. Reliance was able to maintain during most of the quarter the […]
Flat rolled steel prices were mixed this week with three of the four items moving lower and one (galvanized) remaining the same. The questions being asked by buyers – both at the service center and manufacturing level – is how much further do prices need to fall before bouncing back? The issue of “finding the […]
Manufacturing in New York State in October was at its lowest point since May of this year. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported the Empire State Manufacturing Index slipped five points to -6.8 this month. The Index has been in contraction for three consecutive months, dashing economist expectations for growth in the New […]
Steel Market Update asks our readers to interact with us anytime they need help finding information or if they have a question about the steel industry. During the process of responding to these requests many times we find ourselves doing research on a topic that would be of interest to a larger audience. On Friday […]
On Friday this week the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its series of producer price indexes, for more than 10,000 goods and materials. For an explanation of this program see the end of this piece. The latest release this week reported results through September. We run this analysis every three or four months to […]
One of the key questions Steel Market Update is being asked is: what is the status of steel demand being seen by manufacturers and flat rolled steel service centers in the current market? This is an area we cover during our twice monthly trends analysis of flat rolled steel market. So, let’s take a moment […]
In September net job creation was 156,000 July was revised down by 23,000 and August revised up by 16,000. Using a 3MMA, the result for September was 192,000 down from 230,000 in August. Figure 1 shows the 3MMA of the number of jobs created as the brown bars since 1990. These numbers are seasonally adjusted […]
The World Steel Association (worldsteel) released its Short Range Outlook for 2016 and 2017. According to the new report, global steel demand will increase by 0.2 percent to 1,501 million tonnes in 2016. Steel demand contracted by 3.0 percent in 2015. The 2017 forecast is for global steel demand to grow 0.5 percent to 1,510 […]
Both manufacturing companies and flat rolled steel service centers are reporting more than 75 percent of the distributors as offering ever lower spot steel prices. The 75 percent level is important to Steel Market Update as we have pegged it as the level, when reached and maintained, as being the point of Capitulation. That point […]
Each month the Commerce Department issues its Construction Put in Place (CPIP) data, usually on the first working day covering activity two months earlier. August data for CPIP was released on Monday October 3rd. Overall this was a disappointing report with the growth of total construction having declined for five consecutive months and continuing to […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are becoming less enthusiastic about their company’s ability to be successful both now and into the near future. SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index has been steady decline since peaking with an all time high of +71 in early July 2016. Based on our latest market trends analysis Current […]
Lead times continue to be at, or slightly below year ago levels. Steel Market Update conducted our flat rolled steel market trends analysis over the course of this week. As part of our questionnaire, submitted to almost 550 companies, we ask questions regarding lead times for new orders out of the domestic steel mills by […]
Global manufacturing is being hampered by weak trade said IHS Markit. The September JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI, compiled by Markit, rose slightly to 51.0 from 50.8 in August but failed to show any significant growth in the global manufacturing industry. The global report of 28 countries showed only eight reporting deteriorating manufacturing conditions in […]