US Steel announced Monday it will idle its US Steel Tubular Operations in Lorain, Ohio. In a letter to employees, US Steel said the layoffs are a “result of a decline in tubular market conditions, which is impacting demand for the plant’s products.” Layoffs affecting 614 employees will begin around March 8 and continue through […]
Each month the Commerce Department issues its construction put in place (CPIP) data, usually on the first working day covering activity two months earlier. November data was released on January 2nd. Construction put in place is based on spending work as it occurs, estimated for a given month from a sample of projects. In effect […]
Manufacturing growth across the globe slowed as 2014 drew to a conclusion. The December JP Morgan Global Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) registered 51.6 in December, down from 51.8 the previous month and its lowest level since August 2013. North America remained the primary driver of manufacturing growth for the world as the Eurozone and […]
The ISM Manufacturing Index retreated again in December. The Institute of Supply Management released their December report on January 2nd and after the October surprise on the upside, the index slid back once again from 59.0 to 58.7 in November and to 55.5 in December, however this is still equal to the average for the […]
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 […]
The following is the Chicago Federal Reserve statement followed by our own graphical analysis. The CFNAI is an excellent reality check for much of the economic analysis that we routinely provide in The Steel Market Update. An explanation of the Index is provided at the end of this piece. Index shows economic growth picked up […]
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 […]
Durable goods orders took an unexpected decline in November, falling 0.7 percent to $242.3 billion, according to data released by the Department of Commerce. The headline figure widely missed Bloomberg’s consensus of a 3.0 gain for the month. Defense orders dropped 8.1 percent, leading November’s decline after gaining 10 percent in October. Excluding transportation, new orders […]
We received this poem from one of our manufacturing customers with a sense of humor. Enjoy and Happy Holidays to each and every one of you. T’was just 2 day’s,Before Christmas, When all through the market,The mills are so quiet,Will they hit my target? Their stocks keep dropping,The market’s a bear,The mills keep crying.“Imports aren’t […]
Metalforming companies are expecting a slight improvement in business conditions over the next three months, according to the December survey by the Precision Metalforming Association. PMA says low fuel prices may help offset manufacturing costs. Low gas prices may also push surging auto sales into 2015. The December report follows: CLEVELAND, OH—December 18, 2014—According to […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) released their Steel Buyers Sentiment Index this afternoon. Sentiment, which is a measure as to how buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment, rose 4 points from the beginning of December and is now at +56. Positive (+) […]
What may be a disappointment to the domestic (U.S. and Canadian) steel mills is both manufacturing companies and service centers intend to buy more foreign steel during 2015 than they purchased during calendar year 2014. This is most disturbing when you consider that 2014 will go down as one of the biggest years in history […]
Worthington Industries reported an increase in sales for the second quarter of its 2015 fiscal year ending November 30, 2014. Sales of $871 million, however, could not offset weakness in the company’s Engineered Cabs and Oil & Gas sectors. Net earnings fell to $29.5 million from $44.2 million in the previous quarter but surpassed Q2 […]
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 […]
New York manufacturers reported a decline in general business conditions in the December Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The headline business conditions index fell to -3.6, a drop of 14 points and its first negative reading in two years. The new orders index slid 11 points to -2.0 while shipments dropped 11 points to -0.2. The […]
Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The IP index was reported as 106.66 for November an increase of 1.26 percent from October. The three month moving average (3MMA) was 105.75 which was the highest value ever and the sixth straight month where the growth of the 3MMA exceeded […]
There has been a lot of information floating about the marketplace regarding the Chinese steel rebates and especially those represented as special alloy through the addition of boron to the steel. We wrote about this subject in early November and we remind our readers to go back and review the article entitled: Chinese Boron Added […]
A quick note to advise our readers of our Holiday publishing and office schedule. We will continue to publish as normal through Tuesday, December 23rd. We will not publish our newsletter on Thursday, December 25th and Sunday, December 28th unless there is important breaking news that we feel must be shared with our readers. We […]
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 […]
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 […]
I always learn new things every time I attend an industry related conference. I find being exposed to industry experts, active steel buyers in one location (with very few to no suppliers around), business owners who feel comfortable in their surroundings, and a few cocktails thrown into the mix, makes for interesting times. I highly […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on non-farm employment indicated that 321,000 jobs were added in November, October and September were revised up by a total of 44,000. The three month moving average (3MMA) of gains was the highest since May 2010 at 278,000. This job recovery is stronger than was the case in […]
Steel buyers in the November ISM Steel Buyers Survey are expecting general economic activity and sales and production to remain at current levels for the next six months. Eighty percent of buyers said general economic activity will remain the same while 90 percent expect the trend for sales and production in their industry to be […]
Part of my talk at the 2014 HARDI conference was regarding galvanized imports which reached 325,000 net tons in October and appear will be approximately 300,000 tons when the November Census Data numbers are released later this month. To put this into perspective, at this point last year the U.S. received 150,000 net tons and […]
SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index came in at +52 this week. This is the same reading we got back in the middle of November 2014 The +52, which is within the optimistic range for our index, was 10 points less enthusiastic than what we measured at the beginning of November. One year ago our current […]
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. The Chicago Fed Mid-West Manufacturing Index which was suspended earlier this year was expected to be re-instituted this month but […]
Each month the Commerce Department issues its construction put in place (CPIP) data, usually on the first working day covering activity two months earlier. October data was released on December 2nd. Construction put in place is based on spending work as it occurs, estimated for a given month from a sample of projects. In effect […]
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 […]
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 […]