Wolfe Research Managing Director Timna Tanners cautioned clients about the darkening clouds of a brewing steel sheet storm in the company's Basic Materials Weekly Webcast on Monday. “This one we’ve been talking about for a while, and we feel like the theme is coalescing here,” she said.
Shipments of heating and cooling equipment jumped in March, the second month in a row we have seen a significant increase, according to the latest data released from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI).
What's the tea in the steel industry this week? Here's the latest SMU gossip column! Just kidding... kind of. Yes, some of the comments we receive in our weekly flat-rolled market steel buyers' survey are honestly too much to put into print. Some make us laugh. Some make us cringe. Some are cryptic. Most are serious. We appreciate them all. Below are some highlights from our survey results this week. Some of the comments that we can share with you are also included, in italics, in the buyers' own words, with minimal editing on our part.
Offshore cold-rolled (CR) coil prices remain much less expensive than domestic product, even as domestic prices have slipped to a six-month low, according to SMU’s latest check of the market.
The Mexican federal government backed down on the application of tariffs on raw non-alloyed and alloyed aluminum decreed on April 22.
In this Premium analysis we cover North American oil and natural gas prices, drilling rig activity, and crude oil stock levels.
A vote on Friday by the International Trade Commission (ITC) ensures that antidumping duties on certain steel sheet imports from Japan will continue for the mid-term.
Triple-S Steel Holdings has acquired Houston-based plate distributor Griffin Trade Group.
SMU’s Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Indices both declined this week, with Current Sentiment tumbling over 10 points, according to our most recent survey data.
Last week we wrote about a brief lull in price movement, labeling it a period of wait and see. It did, in fact, turn out to be pretty brief. This week... things are little bit different. Perhaps right now we are more in a period of "hope and pray" or "Here we go, hold on to your hats."
Three vocal Republican senators are demanding that President Joe Biden block the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel.
Stelco reported a positive start to 2024 in its first-quarter earnings report on Thursday. And with steady demand and a stable market, the Canadian flat-rolled steelmaker is optimistic for the remainder of the year.
CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, May 15, at 11 am ET. You can register here. Note that the live webinar is free for all to attend. A recording will be available only to SMU members.
US hot-rolled (HR) coil prices declined again, tightening their premium over offshore hot band, and moving closer to parity.
Tariffs on unfairly traded steel and other products help to stabilize America’s most important industries, safeguard tens of thousands of jobs, and protect national security. My union, the United Steelworkers (USW), never seeks these remedies lightly. And presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, implement them only after diligent investigations documenting the harm that foreign adversaries intentionally inflict upon our country with dumping, overproduction and other kinds of trade cheating. I don’t think Lewis Leibowitz considered these points while criticizing tariffs in his excessively pro-free-trade column, “Where is the voice of the consumer?” on May 5.
Most steel products tracked by SMU saw lead times contract this week from two weeks earlier, according to SMU’s most recent survey data.
Brazil-based Gerdau has announced it will carry out a feasibility study into the greenfield development of a 600,000 metric-ton-per-year (mt) special steel plant in Mexico.
Klöckner & Co. logged a wider net loss in the first quarter on-year, but the Duisburg, Germany-based service center group expects higher shipments and sales in the upcoming three months.
Thyssenkrupp Materials Services is continuing its expansion in North America. It announced the opening of a new steel service center in Sinton, Texas, to primarily serve the automotive, HVAC, and construction markets.
The amount of new steel available to the US market, dubbed apparent steel supply, rebounded 7% in March, according to SMU calculations on Department of Commerce and American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) data.
Unless you've been under a rock, you know by know that Nucor's published HR price for this week is $760 per short ton, down $65/st from the company’s $825/st a week ago. I could use more colorful words. But I think it’s safe to say that most of the market was not expecting this. For starters, US sheet mills never announce price decreases. (OK, not never. It has come to my attention that Severstal North America rescinded a price increase back on Feb. 14, 2012. And it caused quite the ruckus.)
Sheet prices fell across the board this week – largely in response to Nucor’s $65-per-short-ton price cut for hot-rolled (HR) coil on Monday morning. SMU’s HR coil price is $780/st on average, a $35/st decrease week over week (w/w). Our average cold-rolled coil price is $1,090/st (down $30/st w/w). Our galvanized base price is $1,100/st […]
When we were asked to provide some additional commentary to SMU about the futures markets for flat rolled, our only reluctance to contribute was rooted merely in the fact that SMU (1) already offers an excellent array of authors on this topic and (2) a concern regarding what new ground could be covered that hasn’t already been discussed to death on this issue. Thankfully, however, Nucor has offered up something we can describe, without hyperbole, as simply revolutionary for spot pricing in flat rolled - a development that we simply could not resist commenting on with respect to its probable impacts on the futures market.
US steel exports eased through March but remain healthy, having reached a six-month high in February
US raw steel output ticked up last week, according to the latest American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) data.
The EU has approved Tokyo-based Nippon Steel Corp.’s (NSC’s) proposed buy of U.S. Steel, a report in Reuters on Monday said.
United Auto Workers (UAW) members have ratified a work contract with Daimler Truck North America.
Is it just me, or does it seem like the summer doldrums might have arrived a little early? I could be wrong there. It’s possible we could see a jump in prices should buyers need to step back into the market to restock. I’ll be curious to see what service center inventories are when we update those figures on May 15. In the meantime, just about everyone we survey thinks HR prices have peaked or soon will. (See slide 17 in the April 26 survey.) Lead times have flattened out. And some of you tell me that you’re starting to see signs of them pulling back. (We’ll know more when we update our lead time data on Thursday.)
The election campaign is white-hot right now, and the Biden administration is touting its protectionist message. Just this past week, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) touted this message. In a release entitled “What They are Saying,” USTR quoted many of the usual protectionist groups praising government action against Chinese steel exports and shipbuilding. Consuming industries in the United States, which employ many times the American workers as the industries seeking trade protection, were not mentioned.
CRU principal analyst Ryan McKinley will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, May 15, at 11 am ET. McKinley is instrumental in determining CRU’s benchmark hot-rolled (HR) coil price. He’ll discuss his role, his background in steel, and how the index works.