The first thing that jumps out at you when taking a look at the December steel and economic data is the change in the direction flat rolled steel prices took early in the month as the domestic steel mills raised prices for the first time since the Spring 2015 (which resulted in a dead cat […]
The domestic steel mills began raising flat rolled steel prices late last week and into this week. We saw a mild rise in our hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume indices as the domestic mills began to collect at least a portion of the announced increases. As we canvass the buyers and sellers of […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index continued its long slide as buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are less optimistic this week regarding their company’s ability to be successful both in the existing (Current) market as well as three to six months into the future (Future). Respondents to our queries regarding Sentiment […]
Twice per month Steel Market Update (SMU) canvasses buyers and sellers of flat rolled steels on a wide variety of topics. One area we probe is how they feel about their individual company’s ability to be successful in today’s economy (Current Sentiment) as well as what they think business conditions will look like three to […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index is continuing its downward trend, even though the Current Index is 4 points higher and the Future segment of the Index is 9 points higher than what we reported during the middle of October. The numbers we follow closely are our 3 month moving averages (3MMA) […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our mid-October flat rolled steel market analysis. We invited almost 600 companies to participate in our questionnaire which is focused on tracking trends affecting flat rolled steel buyers and users. In our opinion, one of the most valuable pieces of information coming out of our market analysis is the […]
Business conditions affecting manufactures and flat rolled steel service centers are expected to be more challenging based on the SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index released today. Buyers, sellers and those associated with the flat rolled steel industry were less optimistic than what we had been seeing over the past 27 months. Our Current Sentiment Index, […]
Buyers and sellers of steel continued to be optimistic about business but less so than a few months ago. Since then Sentiment has been trending lower as the strain of ever lower steel prices, issues regarding demand, lower commodity prices and shrinking margins due to high inventory levels are affecting both buyers and sellers. Today […]
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 should […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been dropping lately and Steel Market Update (SMU) can no longer ignore the direction of market prices at this time. We are, therefore, adjusting our Price Momentum Indicator to Lower from Neutral, meaning that our expectation is for prices to move lower over the next 30 days. There are a […]
Flat rolled steel buyers and sellers are less enthusiastic about their company’s ability to be successful in both the current and future (three to six months into the future) market conditions. The SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index (Current) is being reported as +47, down 6 points over one month ago and well below the +64 […]
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 […]
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 should […]
Our Steel Buyers Sentiment Index dropped for the second month in a row, however, our 3-month-moving-average rose slightly. Our Sentiment Index has been trailing what we reported during 2014 as business growth has been tempered this year versus last. Flat rolled steel prices dropped slightly from the end of last month through the end of […]
The people who buy and sell flat rolled steel for a living continue to be optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful both now and three to six months into the future. However, the year over year weakening (or less optimistic) trend that we have seen for most, if not all of this calendar […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) reported their Steel Buyers Sentiment Index (current situation) to be unchanged from the last measurement made during the middle of July. The +56 being reported is down 2 points from the beginning of July and 12 points from the +68 reported at the beginning of August 2014. The Steel Buyers Sentiment […]
Flat rolled steel prices, and the momentum associated with steel price movement, have been stuck for quite some time as you can see by our SMU Price Momentum at the top of the table below. As a result, our benchmark hot rolled price average is $3 per ton higher than what we reported at 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 should […]
The Steel Market Update Steel Buyers Sentiment Index continues to be modestly optimistic although less so than what the index was reporting one year ago. The trend for the proprietary index has been to move sideways in what might be considered a not too hot, not too cold marketplace. SMU looks at how buyers and […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been measuring “Sentiment” or, how buyers and sellers feel about their company’s ability to be successful both in the current market environment as well as three to six months into the future. We concluded our analysis earlier today and have determined that those involved in the flat rolled steel industry […]
June ended the same way it started with our SMU Price Momentum Indicator pointing toward higher flat rolled steel prices. This is now the second month in a row where our Momentum Indicator has been pointing up. Our Future Steel Buyers Sentiment Index averaged +61.5 for the month of June. However, the last report we […]
SMU Sentiment Index Jumps Since our last flat rolled steel market analysis and evaluation of how buyers and sellers of steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful both three to six months from now (Future) as well as in today’s economic environment (Current), we have had a second price increase and a dumping […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our flat rolled steel analysis over the past four days. Based on the responses collected from those taking our survey we found a continuation of the optimistic trend that we have seen for a number of years now but, when compared to 2nd Quarter 2014 our index has been disappointing […]
I was pleased to hear from a number of our readers who had used the search function at the top right hand side of our website in order to find old articles that we had written on the subject of dumping suits and the process that the suit has to go through. I used 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 should […]
We ended the month of April with the SMU Price Momentum Indicator at Neutral. As the month of May began, the domestic mills announced price increases and managed to move our needle to Higher. As the month ends, our Momentum Indicator continues to point toward higher domestic flat rolled steel prices over the next 30 […]
Steel Buyers Sentiment continues to be well within the optimistic end of our range as the Steel Market Update (SMU) Future Sentiment Index was reported to be +61 this week. This is up one point from two weeks ago but unchanged from one month ago. The SMU Future Sentiment Index measures how buyers and sellers […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to be optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful both now and into the future. However, Steel Market Update has been seeing small adjustments lower to both our current and future Sentiment Indices. Future Sentiment, which measures how buyers and sellers feel about their company’s ability […]
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 should […]
Today is the final day of April and, as is our habit, we will review much of the critical data reviewed or created during the month. SMU Price Momentum Indicator remained at Neutral where it had been for the entire month. SMU has been forecasting a change in the momentum pushing prices from lower to […]