We saw mixed results this week with two products moving lower (hot rolled and galvanized), two remained the same (cold rolled and Galvalume), and plate prices rose a modest $5 per ton. Here is how we see prices this week: Hot Rolled Coil: SMU price range is $580-$640 per ton ($29.00/cwt-$32.00/cwt) with an average of […]
The U.S. International Trade Commission made a final determination that the U.S. steel industry has been materially injured by imports of carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Antidumping (AD) orders will be issued on imports of these products from the eight countries as well as […]
March 2017 steel exports totaled 948,606 net tons (860,562 metric tons), up 14.6 percent over February and up 22.4 percent from March 2016. This is the highest export level seen since November 2014 when 953,828 tons of steel were exported out of the US. The total March export figure is above the three month moving […]
Last week we saw adjustments to the indices that brought the Steel Market Update and Platts numbers closer to one another. Hot rolled is now averaging $625 per ton ($31.25/cwt) on both SMU and Platts (SteelBenchmarker did not provide numbers last week as they only publish their indices twice per month). The spread between the […]
It is the first week of May and the negotiations between the long and flat rolled steel mills have been in full swing all week. By late today (Thursday) word of how the scrap dealers had fared has been coming into our offices. The first region to settle was Detroit which was up $10 on […]
From Steel Market Update perspective the past week was fairly quiet and we did not find any huge changes in prices from what we had reported one week ago. We have a flat rolled steel market trends survey in process right now and a portion of our indices are based on the approximately 100 companies […]
For a number of weeks now (?) Steel Market Update has had our Price Momentum Indicator pointing toward Neutral as opposed to Higher or Lower. Over the past couple of weeks flat rolled prices have been coming off their highs and yet SMU continues to keep our Price Momentum Indicator at Neutral. What gives? Why […]
Steel prices were down across the board this past week according to the indexes followed by Steel Market Update. The biggest drops were on our own indices as we saw large moves in hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel with a smaller move in Galvalume. Our plate prices were up slightly as we continue […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum turned in a strong first quarter with sales up 17.4 percent to $2.42 billion from Q4 2016 and net income up 81 percent to $111.7 million. On a year-over-year basis sales were up 11.9 percent and income 21.1 percent. “Improved demand, higher metal pricing and continued strong execution resulted in record […]
Is the newly initiated Section 232 the Black Swan event that will remove steel supply from the market and tip the balance of supply/demand in favor of the domestic steel mills, thus pushing prices to levels not seen since 2008? There should not be any doubt that the make-up of the Trump Administration, coupled with […]
We have an unusual market. What Steel Market Update is seeing is confidence by most of the steel mills. They feel there may be some minor adjustments in spot pricing as a few mills jockey to maintain their order books. At the same time, most steel buyers are being supportive of the price levels we […]
Swedish steel mill SSAB posted an operating profit of SEK 702 million for the first quarter 2017 ($79.2 million). Higher prices and increased shipments at SSAB Europe helped drive profits for the company. SSAB Americas also saw an increase in realized prices during first quarter and stronger margins as scrap metal prices increased. A maintenance […]
Flat rolled spot prices are slipping based on an analysis of the Steel Market Update (SMU) and Platts flat rolled steel indexes. We found lower average pricing on hot rolled and cold rolled this week with no movement in galvanized and Galvalume. SMU had plate prices down $20 per ton while Platts kept plate prices […]
With consolidated sales of $4.82 billion which is a 30 percent increase over 1Q 2016 and net earnings of $356.9 million it was a good 1st Quarter 2017 for the company. The company reported that the second quarter earnings should exceed that of 1st Quarter. The overall operating rates at the Nucor steel mills was […]
The debate these days seems to be centered around how much inventory is really out there, how much is incoming (especially from foreign sources) and how much flat rolled will buyers need to buy come this summer? Earlier today I asked a small steel mill if they believed the low coated inventories (1.65 months) according […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) is providing two articles on the MSCI (Metal Service Center Institute) data for March 2017 for United States steel distributors in tonight’s newsletter. The first article is our normal analysis and the second article is a deeper dive analysis normally provided to our Premium level readers. Publisher, John Packard, also provides […]
At first glance this was a good report but that impression diminished on closer examination. Year over year the report was quite good but the number of shipping days increased by three and the normal March month over month shipment surge was very muted. Daily shipments increased by 1.7 percent from February. Since 2009 on […]
We saw mixed results this past week regarding flat rolled steel spot prices in North America. Steel Market Update (SMU) only moved one index (hot rolled +$10) while all of the other products remained the same as the prior week. SteelBenchmarker, which only produces pricing twice per month, reported hot rolled and cold rolled prices […]
Total Canadian steel shipments for all products in March were 421,300 net tons, an increase of 15.2 percent from the month before and an increase of 7.4 percent from March 2017. Total steel inventories at the end of the month stood at 1,165,000 tons, down 0.5 percent from last month and down 2.0 percent from […]
Commerce issued an order on Wednesday to rescind the circumvention inquiry on imported Chinese cut-to-length steel plate containing alloying elements that was initiated on February 10, 2016. The inquiry is to be rescinded as of April 12, 2017. With antidumping and countervailing duties just issued in March 2017 on CTL from China, this notice from […]
Flat rolled prices were essentially unchanged this week with the exception of hot rolled coil which seems to have a few more “legs” in the product due to an improving energy market and limited foreign steel imports. The pressure on HRC right now is coming from the two new players: Big River Steel and Acero […]
February 2017 steel exports totaled 827,559 net tons (750,750 metric tons), up 1.1 percent over January and up 6.2 percent from February 2016. This is the highest export level seen since June 2015 when 885,190 tons were exported out of the US. The total February export figure is above the three month moving average (average […]
Flat rolled steel prices dropped significantly on the SMU Index while Platts had prices much more stable with hot rolled moving lower on Friday by $5 per ton and cold rolled, which had dropped earlier in the week, bouncing back to the same levels reported the week before last. We seem to be in a […]
Licensed data for March was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on March 4th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. All volumes in this analysis are reported in short tons. The total […]
Scrap dealers are pointing at the order book at the domestic mills as one of the main reasons why ferrous scrap prices inched back after the domestic mills initially pushed for shred and obsolete grades to be lower by $30 per gross ton. The mills could not get enough dealers to fill their scrap order […]
Flat rolled steel prices are showing themselves as being in a “mature” market having been on the rise for most of the 24 weeks since prices began their climb at the end of October 2016. We peaked out on hot rolled at $655 per ton over the last two weeks. This week we moved off […]
SMU saw the flat rolled steel markets as flat to slightly down while SteelBenchmarker was mixed and Platts had hot rolled and cold rolled prices increasing by $10 per ton. Sounds like a confusing market but, when looking closer at the actual numbers it really isn’t. Benchmark hot rolled coil (HRC) was reported to average […]
Flat rolled steel Price Momentum ended the month of March where it began – indicating higher prices for hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, Galvalume and now plate prices. The steel and manufacturing industries remain firmly entrenched in the Optimistic camp as the SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index hit new highs for the three-month moving average […]
When we began planning for our 2017 SMU Steel Summit Conference I was actually thinking that I would be able to drop the subject of trade and perhaps work on other issues of “more importance” by the time we reached the end of August 2017. Even with the CORE, hot rolled, cold rolled and cut-to-length […]
US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced today that a final finding has been made on the dumping of carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length (CTL) plate into the U.S. from eight countries. Commerce affirmed that dumping had occurred regarding imports of CTL from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and imposed duties ranging […]