Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 16, 2014
Hello from New York City. If you are in the steel industry and you have never attended a Steel Success Strategies conference (or been a lobby rat hanging out in the hotel lobby and talking to people as they pass in and out of the hotel) then you need to do it at least one in your career. There are probably 1000 people registered for the conference and another 3 people associated with the industry within a three or four block radius.
As I mentioned earlier, I hope our Steel Summit Conference (our program is getting rave reviews from those I am speaking with here in New York City) generates half the buzz that is connected with SSS due to all of the hard work of Peter Marcus and his World Steel Dynamics team.
A few comments heard during my conversations with attendees of the SSS conference (and others):
Russian and Turkish hot rolled offers are around $600 to $620 USA port compared to $640 low end domestic offers. Not much incentive to buy foreign HRC today.
There are still cheap Chinese offers on cold rolled and coated steels. One service center stated during the conversation, “But when will you get it?”
Plate business is really gotten busy. One service center told us they were a buyer if anyone could find them a plate supplier for August delivery.
One trading company reported they are no longer offering Russian material into the U.S. market, “We are taking a risk management approach by not doing business with Russia.”
Large scrap company – July scrap prices will move sideways before rising a few dollars in August. Also told the group we were with that scrap prices normally follow iron ore (which is down significantly over past month) but the lack of scrap exports to Turkey is a bigger factor (as will be the return of exports to Turkey).
One manufacturing company brought a hush to the crowd when they advised that they had gone from less than 1 percent foreign in 2013 to 70 percent this year.
I will have more from New York City on our Blog tomorrow and in Thursday evening’s newsletter.
Thank you to those who have already registered for our Steel Summit Conference as well as those who are being proactive and booking your hotel rooms. The hotel is the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway and the conference rate is under Steel Market Update. The convention center is right next to the Marriott hotel.
We just confirmed a couple more speakers today and added a new program to the schedule. I hope to have all of that information on the website and in Thursday’s newsletter. Thank you again for your support and please tell others in the industry about our conference and program.
John Packard, Publisher
See you in Atlanta on September 3 & 4, 2014.
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Tariff-related noise aside, there is one basic factor keeping buyers on the sidelines. Despite recent declines, HR prices remain at historically high levels. And there is no obvious support to keep them there.
Final Thoughts
United Airlines raised eyebrows earlier this month when it provided two forecasts for 2025 – one assuming a relatively stable economy and another assuming a recession. The reason? Uncertainty around the impact of President Trump’s policy shocks on the broader economy. And it sometimes feels like we’re seeing a battle between those two narratives (stable vs recession) play out within in the pages of this newsletter.
Final Thoughts
Despite some scary headlines lately (especially about Trump potentially firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell) this is not October 2008 (financial crisis) or March 2020 (onset of the pandemic). But it sure seems like we’ve taken a relatively strong economy and poured a thick sauce of uncertainty over it.
Final Thoughts
I put some of our survey data through ChatGpt, with interesting results.
Final Thoughts
Nearly 50% of respondents to our latest survey thought hot-rolled coil prices have already peaked. And where will those prices be two months from now? Responses were decidedly split on that question.