Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
April 7, 2014
For Thursday night’s issue my goal is to attempt to produce as accurate lead times for each mill as possible. This is easy for some mills who publish lead times on a weekly or, in at least one case, daily basis. Other mills hold the information a little closer to the vest. If you have lead time information from one or more of your mill suppliers I would appreciate if you are able to share that data with me. If you have received information verbally from your mill please shoot me an email. In light of the market being a little spooked by all of the production issues, I think it will help if we can get our arms around lead times and calm those frayed nerves a bit.
I hope that the US Steel article discussing the status of their two plants was helpful in allaying any fears that might be cropping up with those companies who do not do direct mill business or may be doing business with mills other than USS.
A note about Steel 101 – our workshop on the steelmaking and market fundamentals for both long and flat products is almost sold out. We have one (1) spot left before we are required to close the workshop. If you need more details you can get them on our website or by contacting our office.
Our traffic to the website is picking up. I actually have a neat feature when I am in the back end of our website I can see how many people are logged in and can keep track of the flow of visitors. I believe there are two reasons why traffic is improving: our members are realizing that we are putting articles to the front of the website prior to publication. There were actually a couple of articles which were edited as mill announcements were made so that the information would be as up to date as possible for our readers. The second reason our traffic is growing is Google finally realized and recognized SMU as a news organization. Thank you Mr. Google.
For those of you who are LinkedIn members. You are welcome to join our LinkedIn group which is conveniently called: Steel Market Update. You are also welcome to link with me on my personal page although I tend to post most articles and information on our group page.
We also have an active Twitter account (and no, I don’t tell you what I had for lunch or what the weather is like…). We tweet out every blog post that we get.
We are working with our developers on a RSS feed that is effective for our members. I had a comment from one recently who reminded me that it is not possible to keep checking the website all day long for updates – and when breaking news happens he did want us to provide some way of sending a notice to those registered to get notices. We should get this handled in the next couple of weeks. It will not be automatic – it will be something you have to register for (or opt in) as we do not want to be sending everyone a bunch of stuff they don’t want.
Its been another in a long line of hectic days. I want to thank you again for your business as it is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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Final Thoughts
Getting back to the price increases I mentioned at the top of this article, to what extent are they aimed at raising prices and to what extent are they aimed at stopping the bleeding that was happening in the second half of May, before President Trump announced the 50% tariff?
Final Thoughts
We just wrapped another Steel 101 Workshop, where you take what you learned in the classroom into the steel mill.
Final Thoughts
Steel equities and steel futures fell hard after news broke earlier this week that the US and Mexico might reach an agreement that would result in the 50% Section 232 tariff coming off Mexican steel. The sharp declines didn’t make much sense, especially if, as some reports indicate, Mexico might agree to a fixed quota. They didn't make sense even if steel flows between the US and Mexico remain unchanged.
Final Thoughts
Even before the news about Mexico, I didn’t want to overstate the magnitude of the change in momentum. As far as we could tell, there hadn’t been a frenzy of new ordering following President Trump’s announcement of 50% Section 232 tariffs. But higher tariffs had unquestionably raised prices for imports, which typically provide the floor for domestic pricing. We’d heard, for example, that prices below $800 per short ton for hot-rolled (HR) coil were gone from the domestic market – even for larger buyers.
Final Thoughts
I want to draw your attention to SMU’s monthly scrap market survey. It’s a premium feature that complements our long-running steel market survey. We’ve been running our scrap survey since late January. And over just that short time, it’s become a valuable way not only for us to assess where scrap prices might go but also to quantify some of the “fuzzy” indicators - like sentiment and flows - that help to put the price in context.