The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analysis of non-farm employment reported on Friday that 142,000 jobs were added in September which was well below consensus expectations of about 200,000. In addition July was revised down from 245,000 to 223,000 and August was revised down from 173,000 to 136,000. An upward revision for August had been […]
US Steel announced on Tuesday that it is examining a possible consolidation of its North American flat rolled operations and may idle steelmaking operations and most finishing operations at Granite City. US Steel said it routinely adjusts production to align with market fluctuations. The potential consolidation is a result of challenging global market conditions, including […]
Today, the Department of Commerce announced its final determinations in the antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on imports of welded pipe from Korea and Turkey. The DOC determined that imports of welded line pipe from Korea and Turkey have been sold in the United States at dumping margins ranging from 2.53 percent to 6.19 percent […]
According to Baker Hughes data from October 2, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 809 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 29 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 26 to 614 rigs, gas rigs down 2 to 195 rigs, and […]
A check on port conditions in the Gulf region revealed that warehouses are low on steel inventory as customers cautiously anticipate the outcome of antidumping cases. SMU’s source in the Houston area had the following comments: “Our company predominantly handles flat rolled products and we have seen a depletion of inventory as our customers await […]
The September Institute of Supply Management (ISM) PMI registered 50.2 percent, a decrease of 0.9 percentage points from the 51.7 percent reading in August. The PMI is at its lowest point since May 2013 when it registered 50.1 percent. The three month moving average has been see-sawing since June when it gained points after seven […]
The Chicago Business Barometer, or Chicago PMI as it is more commonly known, surprised economists by dropping 5.7 points to 48.7 in September The decline follows two months of expansion and the speed of descent is a cause for concern said MNI Indicators. The production index plummeted by double digits to its lowest level since […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been slipping on a regular basis for a number of months. This has created a market where buyers expect lower prices each time they order steel, even if there is only a week or two between orders. This tends to keep order sizes modest and develops a feeding frenzy between […]
According to Baker Hughes data from September 25, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 838 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 4 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 4 to 640 rigs, gas rigs down 1 to 197 rigs, and […]
Worthington Industries reported net earnings of $31.4 million for first quarter 2016 ending August 31, 2015. Earnings were down from $44.2 million in Q1 2015 but up from Q4 FY 2015’s $28.9 million. Net sales declined 12 percent to $758.1 million, driven by lower volume in all business segments and lower average steel pricing. Gross […]
Below is the latest release issued by the the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) regarding residential and commercial heating and cooling equipment shipments through July 2015. You may read the press release on their website here. Residential Storage Water Heaters U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters for July 2015 increased 3.5 percent, […]
The following article was produced for our Premium level members earlier this week. We wanted to share it with our Executive level members as we think it is important and interesting as the world is flooded with excess steel capacity. If you find this article interesting you may be interested in upgrading your membership from […]
As readers are well aware, the Fed announcement on the 17th was a nonevent as far as interest rates are concerned. This morning as we examined the currency values of the sixteen steel trading nations that we track, it was evident that traders anticipated this lack of action around the 10th to the 13th and […]
Global steel production in 12 months through August totaled 1.615 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.3 billion tonnes. Capacity utilization in August was 68.4 percent with a three month moving average (3MMA) of 69.1 percent, down from 71.6 percent in three months through June. China accounted for 50.5 percent of global production in August. […]
Demand (or the lack thereof) seems to be the real culprit affecting the steel market and prices at this moment. I spoke with one of the larger service centers this afternoon and asked: would imports be reduced enough to impact U.S. supply and trigger a price spike? I asked what were the chances that the […]
According to Baker Hughes data from September 18, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 842 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 6 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 8 to 644 rigs, gas rigs up 2 to 198 rigs, and […]
Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out its series of producer price indexes, for thousands of goods and materials. For an explanation of this program see the end of this piece. The latest release last Friday reported results through August. We run this analysis every three or four months to give readers […]
Figure 1 shows historical gas and oil prices since January 2000. The daily spot price of West Texas Intermediate closed at $45.92 on September 8th after recovering to $59.53 on June 15th. In the last 10 days WTI has declined by $3.28 according to the latest daily figure available from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). […]
My opinion (and many of the items discussed in my Final Thoughts articles are just that – my opinion) is that we are getting close to seeing a disruption of services at one mill and we probably are close to possibly seeing two mills (ArcelorMittal and US Steel) lockout the USW members at their mills. […]
Manufacturing expanded at its slowest pace in two years, according to August data from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). On the domestic front, consumer spending remains strong bolstered by low gas prices and job growth but manufacturing for export has suffered from ailing global economies and the strength of the US dollar. The export […]
Construction firms are finding it increasingly difficult to find qualified craft workers, according to a new report by the Associated General Contractors of America. More than 2 million construction workers were laid off in the 2008 recession with many of those never returning to the industry. In a survey of 1,358 construction firms, 86 percent […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analysis of non-farm employment reported on Friday that 173,000 jobs were added in August which was slightly below Moody’s Analytics expectation. The number will likely be revised upward in subsequent months. June and July payrolls were revised higher by a combined 44,000. The unemployment rate, calculated from a different […]
Earlier this week, Steel Market Update hosted our 5th Steel Summit Conference. We had a record crowd in attendance tipping the scales at close to 300 people. We had 26 speakers over the course of the two day conference (including Peter Wright and John Packard of SMU) and, from our perspective, the longer term forecast […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to remain optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market conditions. However, we have seen a weakening of that position especially when we look at the numbers based on a 3-month moving average. The SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index measures how flat rolled […]
The article below is normally reserved for our Premium members, we felt it would be good to share with our Executive members also. We have two data sources for this report. These are the Federal Reserve and the Oanda forex trading platform. An explanation of these sources is given at the end of this report. […]
According to Baker Hughes data from August 28, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 877 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 8 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs up 1 to 675 rigs, gas rigs down 9 to 202 rigs, and […]
The following article is written by Spencer Johnson of FC Stone LLC. With six years of experience, Spencer provides his customers strategic and tactical advice on protecting themselves against commodity price volatility in the steel markets. Spencer will rotate weekly futures articles with Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Spencer can be reached at spencer.johnson@intlfcstone.com. […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) produces for our Premium level members a number of articles/analysis related to the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) data which is released on a monthly basis. One of the articles is our Service Center Inventories Apparent Excess/Deficit analysis. Our Apparent Excess/Deficit is the number of tons either over or under what […]
According to Baker Hughes data from August 21, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 885 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is an increase of 1 rig when compared to last week, with oil rigs up 2 to 674 rigs, gas rigs unchanged at 211 rigs, and miscellaneous […]
Global steel production in 12 months through July totaled 1.619 billion tonnes with a capacity of 2.3 billion tonnes. Capacity utilization in July was 68.4 percent with a three month moving average (3MMA) of 70.4 percent, down from 71.6 percent in three months through June. China accounted for 49.4 percent of global production in July. […]