Futures
Hot Rolled Futures Stabilize…
Written by Bradley Clark
March 6, 2014
The futures market stabilized this week as renewed buying interest has returned. It seems that the recent spot weakness is being shrugged off by most market participants as buyers are looking down the curve to add length. Recent history has shown us that waiting for the physical market to bottom is too late to pick up cheap offers, by the time the market turns seller will have run for the hills.
March has traded at $628, Q2 at $625 and Q3 and Q4 at $627 this week in decent volumes. It appears that the floor for now has been solidly established at $625 for deferred periods.
Not much more to add, the decent in price in the spot market feels to be slowing and time will tell if momentum to the downside picks up in the coming weeks, or the rumors of impending price hikes will come to fruition and turn the tide.
{amchart id=”73″ HRC Futures Forward Curve}
U.S. Midwest #1 Busheling Ferrous Scrap (AMM) Prices Look to Soften Further
The busheling market is beginning to take shape this week with prices down around $20 per ton. Talk of weather concerns, healthy inventories and lack of an export market have conspired to create a very sloppy market this month. With finished steel prices softening and demand remaining stable there is little impetus for mills to pay up for prime scrap. With that said, the market will have had two consecutive months of healthy fall in prices, a bounce may be in the cards for next month.
Again, there have been no reported trades this past week.
{amchart id=”74″ BUS Futures Forward Curve}
SMU Note: You can view the interactive graphics in this article when you are logged into the website and reading the newsletter or article online. If you have not logged into our website and need a new user name and password we can do that for you out of our office. Contact us at: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by calling 800-432-3475. If you need help navigating the website we would also be very happy to assist you.
Bradley Clark
Read more from Bradley ClarkLatest in Futures
HR futures: Shifting risk profiles, emerging opportunities
Summer is here, and a familiar sentiment has hit the hot-rolled coil (HRC) futures market. Prices continue to decline in both the spot market and the futures market, with expectations of sub-$800 prices for the remainder of the year.
HR futures complex slips from June
The CME steel futures complex saw a slight decrease in activity from levels seen at the end of June. This has coincided with a notable decline in flat prices for the nearby futures contract, now August HRC, which is lower by $81 per short ton (st) since last writing on June 13. It settled at $672/st on July 17.
HR futures: Bottom to prices?
A month ago, when we last presented this column, there was a surprising amount of optimism in the presumably imminent reversal of the downtrend in hot-rolled steel prices in the second half of this year.
HR futures: ‘Gimme Shelter’
This chart of the rolling second-month CME hot-rolled coil (HRC) future dating back to the start of 2022 has been as volatile as a herd of “Wild Horses.”
HR futures: Market changes gears
For the first time in weeks, activity in the futures market broke out of the recent “front grinds lower” pattern to provide new insight into the dynamics of the steel industry.