Steel Products
January at a Glance
Written by John Packard
February 1, 2013
This will most likely be the last time Steel Market Update will use the table below. We will begin rolling out some new products in the coming days which are meant to replace and improve upon what we have been providing our members to date. We will go into more details on the changes soon.
Until then, the table below is a quick reference to a number of the important items we saw during the month of January. The first section is items related to Steel Market Update – Momentum, Sentiment, MoMo, Fair Value and our Indices.
At the beginning of the next segment is the HR Futures settlement numbers (CRU). Since we have a comment in the US Steel article about 4th Quarter pricing the CRU October average was $592 – so, for the quarter the average of the CRU was $617.
We also show other commodities followed by capacity utilization rates (note: you cannot compare January to November and December due to capability adjustments which were made by the AISI), inventories (SMU and MSCI) and various indexes. The last section is the Forward Curve on HRC and busheling (scrap).
In the future we will begin looking at items as forward or lagging indicators – and will concentrate on those which can assist us in forecasting steel needs for the future.
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Steel Products
US HR price premium over imports narrows slightly
Hot-rolled (HR) coil prices ticked down in the US last week, while tags abroad varied. The result: US hot band margin over imports on a landed basis has narrowed to a slight extent. SMU’s average domestic HR price last week was $685 per short ton (st), down $5/st from the week before. US hot band […]
SMU Community Chat: Jan. 22 with Alan Kestenbaum, founder of Bedrock Industries
Alan Kestenbaum, the founder of Bedrock Industries and the former CEO of Stelco, will be the featured speaker on the next SMU Community Chat. The webinar will be on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at 11 am ET. It’s free to attend. You can register here. We’ll look at Stelco’s recent sale to Cleveland-Cliffs and what made […]
December service center shipments and inventories report
Flat rolled = 77.1 shipping days of supply Plate = 58.1 shipping days of supply Flat rolled Flat-rolled steel supply at US service centers ballooned in December with higher inventories as well as seasonally lower shipments. At the end of December, service centers carried 77.1 shipping days of flat-rolled steel supply on an adjusted basis, […]
SMU Community Chat replay now available
The latest SMU Community Chat webinar reply is now available on our website to all members. After logging in at steelmarketupdate.com, visit the community tab and look under the “previous webinars” section of the dropdown menu. All past Community Chat webinars are also available under that selection. If you need help accessing the webinar replay, or if your company […]
Galvanized buyers see glimmers of optimism amidst the chaos
Reflecting on 2024 and looking ahead to the new year, galvanized steel buyers on this month’s HARDI call expressed a mix of cautious optimism with lingering uncertainties.