Steel Mills More Willing to Negotiate Steel Prices

Cold rolled continued to be the one product where the mills were “stingier” and less willing to negotiate pricing. Only 42 percent reported the mills as willing to negotiate CR pricing. This is an increase of 29 percent at the beginning of this month.

Negotiation on Galvanized grew from 42 percent to 56 percent. The low point in the cycle was 35 percent reported during the middle of April.

Galvalume was reported as the most flexible with 64 percent of our respondents reporting AZ mills as willing to negotiate. The percentage of those reporting a willingness to negotiate this week is up from 38 percent at the beginning of May and more than double what we reported during the middle of April (29 percent).

Negotiation data suggests that prices are either turning or about to turn as buyers become more aggressive and steel mills more receptive to the idea of negotiating. For example, SMU has heard that the domestic mills have pretty much abandoned the $700 per ton hot rolled spot price and are closer to $680-$680 per ton.

Our flat rolled steel price indices picked up some weakening in prices this week and we noticed that Platts has actually dropped HRC pricing twice this week.