Twice per month Steel Market Update conducts a survey of active participants in the flat rolled steel community in North America. Our survey asks questions regarding steel industry trends, flat rolled steel pricing and negotiations, mill lead times, steel service center trends and pricing, etc.

In our most recent issue of our Steel Market Update newsletter which was published on Sunday evening, we discuss the results of our survey plus cover other industry news and related topics of interest to those who are buying and selling flat rolled steel.

In Sunday night’s issue we produced articles regarding both manufacturers and service center reporting they are beginning to build inventory – we also discussed service center inventory levels which SMU has at 2.18 months as of the beginning of December. Other articles which came from our survey include an article about service center pricing reversing trend and one where we review the month of November to see if both manufacturers and service centers were able to meet their business forecast for the month.

Every Sunday evening our SMU newsletter reviews a number of the flat rolled steel price indexes including our own steel index. SMU carefully monitors hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steel prices all of which have been moving to the upside due to the recent domestic mill price announcements.

In steel industry related news our latest newsletter has articles about ThyssenKrupp AG reporting a huge loss due to a $3.9 billion impairment charge mostly related to ThyssenKrupp Steel USA and their sister company CSA in Brazil, another discusses the new Push/Pull Pickle line at Severstal Columbus and a third article discusses how a rail strike was averted in the U.S.

Other topics discussed in last evening’s SMU newsletter concerned a review of last week’s spot iron ore market prices in China, the oil rig count in the United States and Canada and what economic news coming out this week our readers should be aware of.

In our SMU Final Thoughts the publisher of Steel Market Update discusses the scrap market as scrap prices are a key factor for steel prices and one reason why we feel mills like Nucor have been slow to publically make a second pricing mill. Scrap prices should become clear this week and will be reported on in coming editions of our SMU newsletter.

If you are interested in learning more about the flat rolled steel markets in North America from an experienced steel source (our publisher has 31-years of active sales, purchasing and management experience) we invite you to register for a free trial of our newsletter. For those who may have had a trial in the past but would like another opportunity to see what’s new at SMU you are welcome to send an email to info@steelmarketupdate.com and request a new trial.

For those of you who are ready to become members we do have a special 14-month offer the details of which you can learn by emailing us at info@steelmarketupdate.com or you can call our office at 800-432-3475 (706-216-5440).

We also invite you to review our events section of our website. Our next steel training workshop will be January 25, 2012 in Houston, Texas where we will discuss steel pricing volatility and how to Hedge Price Risk. More information can be found by clicking on the buttons below or by contacting our office.