U.S. steel product shipments slipped in February by 1.7%, the first decrease since bottoming out in April 2020 when COVID nearly brought the economy to a standstill. Despite the decrease month on month, which may be due to seasonal factors, steel shipments have recovered to pre-pandemic volumes and posted an increase of 5.5% compared to February […]
My first job in the steel industry started in July 1977. I have been involved with the industry ever since. I’m coming up on 44 years in a few months. That either makes me old or wise…well, old anyway. What I can tell you is during those 44 years I have never seen a market […]
Chris Shipp, Vice President of Supply Chain at Priefert Manufacturing/Priefert Steel, will be the featured speaker at the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, April 28, at 11 a.m. ET. Priefert serves the agriculture and ranching industries, among others. Chris purchases more than 150,000 tons of steel each year. We will discuss solar projects, infrastructure, […]
Chris Shipp, Vice President of Supply Chain at Priefert Manufacturing/Priefert Steel, will be the featured speaker at the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, April 28, at 11 a.m. ET. Priefert serves the agriculture and ranching industries, among others. Chris purchases more than 150,000 tons of steel each year. We will discuss solar projects, infrastructure, […]
Chris Shipp, Vice President of Supply Chain at Priefert Manufacturing/Priefert Steel, will be the featured speaker at the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, April 28, at 11 a.m. ET. Priefert serves the agriculture and ranching industries, among others. Chris purchases more than 150,000 tons of steel each year. We will discuss solar projects, infrastructure, […]
Join us for a free, 45-minute Community Chat with an expert steel buyer on Wednesday. Chris Shipp, Vice President of Supply Chain at Priefert Manufacturing/Priefert Steel, will be the featured speaker during the webinar, which begins Wednesday, April 28, at 11 a.m. ET. Priefert serves the agriculture and ranching industries, among others. Chris purchases more than […]
Buyers of flat rolled and plate steels continue to complain of their inability to get enough steel in order to supply their customers. In the latest analysis conducted by Steel Market Update last week, 47% of the respondents to our survey reported they were unable to get enough supply. We have seen a small improvement […]
Buyers of flat rolled and plate steels continue to complain of their inability to get enough steel in order to supply their customers. In the latest steel market analysis conducted by Steel Market Update last week, 47% of the respondents to our survey reported they were unable to get enough supply. We have seen a […]
Downstream metals M&A is back, and it could be bigger than ever – or at least as big as it’s been since the last metals super cycle in 2006-08, according to one investment banker. Deal volume in the metals service center and processing sectors was good in early 2020 and “cratered” following the COVID-19 outbreak. But […]
The Steel Manufacturers Association applauds the Congressional Steel Caucus for their bi-partisan support of Buy America policies to fix America’s infrastructure. Said SMA President Philip Bell, “Yesterday, a bipartisan group of over 50 members of Congress affirmed that Buy America procurement policies that promote using steel made in America by Americans is a trade-compliant approach […]
We understand at least one integrated steelmaker is approaching their spot customers with hot rolled base prices of $1,500 to $1,520 per ton. We are not aware of any buyers at this “suggested” HRC price level (it wasn’t that long ago that $1,300 was the “suggested” steel price). We concluded one of our SMU Flat […]
New York manufacturers had a robust month in April with new orders and shipments accelerating. The Empire State Manufacturing general business index rose 9 points to 26.3, its highest level in more than two years. New orders soared nearly 18 points to 26.9 and the shipments index climbed to 25.0. Delivery times continued to lengthen, […]
Flat Rolled = 41.4 Shipping Days of Supply Plate = 43 Shipping Days of Supply Flat Rolled U.S. service center flat rolled inventories remained very lean in March, as shipments were strong, but mills continued to run late on deliveries. At the end of March, U.S. service centers had 41.4 shipping days of supply of […]
Steel Market Update’s latest analysis of the monthly Key Market Indicators shows that our Present Situation markers have seen little change when compared to the month prior, while the Trend change saw a visible shift upward during the same period. Overall, the marketplace continues to recover from the pandemic as key metrics show further improvement. […]
Spring has sprung including a bounce in economic activity, according to the latest Federal Reserve Beige Book. The April survey of federal districts showed a moderate increase in activity from auto sales to tourism, along with heightened optimism. Spring break, vaccine rollout and stimulus payments gave the tourism industry a boost from late February to […]
Olympic Steel CEO Rick Marabito is very bullish on the metals market, comparing the industry to a baseball game that’s just getting started: “I think we are in the first couple of innings of a really good market and cycle,” he said during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat. Despite material shortages and supply disruptions, manufacturing is […]
There are specific reasons for the tightness of supply that exists in the market today. Events have been in motion for the past 25 years that have culminated in the limitations of supply. For those of you who have attended SMU Steel Summit Conferences you may recall a presentation done by Paul Lowrey, Managing Director […]
Like those in the steel industry, aluminum suppliers see opportunity in the coming wave of battery electrical vehicles (BEVs). Indeed, they claim, even more opportunity for aluminum than for steel. Automakers are hard at work designing battery-powered cars and trucks with zero emissions as efforts to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions to slow climate change […]
The U.S. trucking industry is straining to keep up with demand as imports and retail shipping vie with construction and manufacturing for limited truck capacity. Imports fell as the coronavirus took hold last March, but surged to 2.1 million TEU (20-foot equivalent units) in August 2020 as global economies reopened. The August record was subsequently […]
The U.S. trucking industry is straining to keep up with demand as imports and retail shipping vie with construction and manufacturing for limited truck capacity. Imports fell as the coronavirus took hold last March, but surged to 2.1 million TEU (20-foot equivalent units) in August 2020 as global economies reopened. The August record was subsequently […]
Over the weekend I was speaking with the CEO of a service center and we were talking about the resistance he was seeing from his plant employees. Many of them did not want to get the COVID vaccine. The office people were mostly vaccinated, but the plant people were not. We discussed the possibility of […]
The U.S. labor market saw a strong surge in employment to closed out the first quarter. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that employers added 916,000 to their payrolls in March, more than doubling the 379,000 jobs added in February. Following a dismal close to 2020 and a slow start in January, total […]
Producer prices continue to register solid monthly increases from the losses suffered during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The composite Producer Price Index (PPI) of all commodities from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed an increase of 2.1% in February versus the prior month, and a 6.0% increase year on year, seasonally adjusted. […]
Producer prices continue to rebound from the losses suffered during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Since the decreases in March and April of 2020, the composite Producer Price Index (PPI) of all commodities from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has seen consistent month-on-month increases. March’s index registered a 3.7% increase versus the prior […]
Looking for a Top… Looking for Steel…. As we conduct our analysis of the flat rolled and plate steel prices this week, we cannot help but notice the pace of increases has slowed…or is the slowing due to many mill order books being closed and having nothing new to offer. The availability of spot tonnage […]
Looking for a Top… Looking for Steel…. As we conduct our analysis of the flat rolled and plate steel prices this week, we cannot help but notice the pace of increases has slowed…or is the slowing due to many mill order books being closed and having nothing new to offer. The availability of spot tonnage […]
For the seventh consecutive month, steel prices rose throughout March, fueled by a continuation of strong demand and limited supply. Hot rolled steel prices averaged $1,300 per ton by the middle of the month, far exceeding any historical price record, and reached $1,330 by the last week of March. The SMU Price Momentum Indicator has […]
Rising costs and supply-chain disruptions remained headwinds for manufacturers across the globe in March. Despite the challenges, the J.P. Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI reached a 10-year high of 55.0. Manufacturing output expanded at the strongest rate in a decade as demand strengthened domestically and in international trade. Growth was reported in 23 of 27 nations […]
U.S. manufacturing is on a solid path to recovery, according to the latest report from the Institute for Supply Management. The March 2021 Manufacturing ISM Report on Business posted a PMI of 64.7, a gain of 3.9 points from February. Expanding demand resulted in new orders, production and employment growing at a faster rate in […]
Business conditions in the construction industry are split along the residential/nonresidential line, said Ken Simonson, chief economist at the Association of General Contractors of America, who spoke during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat Webinar. Employment levels in the industry plunged last year at a similar rate between the two segments as the pandemic took hold in March […]