Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 27, 2014
With the 1st of July not coming until Tuesday and Friday being a holiday in the United States, I have decided to hold off our next flat rolled steel market analysis until next Monday, July 7th. That means we will produce our first survey for the month of July next week and then the second analysis will be done the week of July 21st.
We apologize for missing our futures article on Thursday. We have one of our contributing writers on vacation and Andre Marshall came down ill after our Chicago Managing Price Risk II workshop. We hope Andre will be back on his feet early this week and we can get caught back up on our futures articles by Tuesday.
We added our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steelmaking & Market Fundamentals workshop to our website. We will conduct our two day workshop in Fort Wayne, IN at the Marriott Courtyard on South Harrison Street in downtown Fort Wayne. The dates for the workshop will be October 7th and 8th. We will be touring the Butler, Indiana plant of Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI). Steel Dynamics will also host a networking/cocktail party and dinner at the conclusion of our first day. I want to thank all of the people at Steel Dynamics for their support of our Steel 101 program. Information and registration can be found on our website. This program has become very popular and there are limited number of spots in this workshop. If you have any questions please feel free to contact our office at: 800-432-3475.
The 1st photo to the left was taken at Severstal Dearborn which our Steel 101 workshop has visited twice. The photo is of the charging of the BOF (basic oxygen furnace) with pig iron. Prior to the pig iron the BOF was charged with scrap. If you would like to learn more about how steel is made, rollled and sold you will love our Steel 101 workshop. The workshop is excellent for new employees, new executives moving from one industry to another, suppliers to the steel mills and service centers, logistics companies and anyone wanting to get exposed to the steelmaking and selling process (both long and flat rolled products). Four of our instructors have in excess of 35 years of active steel experience in metallurgy, management, marketing and sales of flat and long products.
For those who haven’t been paying attention – Steel Market Update has put together an excellent steel industry conference to be held the first week in September. This is our first two day conference and we have concentrated all of our energies on producing a quality program at a reasonable price for those wishing to attend. SMU subscribing companies remember that one of the benefits of your membership is for your people to receive a $100 per person discount off our normal registration pricing. If your company sends more than one person you are entitled to another $100 per person discount. The dates for our Steel Summit Conference are September 3 & 4, 2014 at the Georgia International Convention Center located adjacent to the Atlanta airport. We are using the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway hotel and we have blocked a limited number of rooms for our guests. Registration is open so spread the word to your customers, suppliers or friends in the industry: COME JOIN US IN ATLANTA!
If you would like to help us by becoming a sponsor of this Steel Summit Conference please contact us at: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com
A reminder that we will publish only one more Executive issue this week (Tuesday night) and one Premium Level issue (Monday). We will not publish on Thursday evening and Sunday evening due to the 4th of July Holiday here in the United States.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Founder & Publisher
Have I asked you to join us in Atlanta yet?
The second photo was taken during our Steel 101 workshop tour of California Steel Industries (CSI). Can anyone guess why the young lady is so happy in the photo (it could be because she is going to Atlanta in September…).
John Packard
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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.
Final Thoughts
I think there is an obvious case for sheet and plate prices going higher from here. That’s because, on a very basic level, the floor for flat-rolled steel prices, which is typically provided by imports, is now significantly higher than it was a week ago.
Final Thoughts
We're about to hit 50% Section 232 steel tariffs. What could happen?