Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 7, 2014
Earlier today I learned that the deadline for offers to buy the assets connected to Severstal North America had been moved to July 11th. We originally reported the date as being July 2nd. None of the mills we contacted today were willing to share information about the bidding process or even if they had a good idea if the assets would indeed sell. One mill did tell us that the original idea was for Severstal to make a decision by the end of July. With the date being moved to the 11th this one mill felt that it would be sometime in August before they think they would know if the mills would indeed be sold.
My apologies if our email marketing for our Steel Summit Conference is starting to clutter your inbox. Not our intent. For those who have already registered – Thank You. For those who haven’t – Please Join Us in Atlanta in September… If everybody who promised to come will register tomorrow there won’t be a need to send reminder emails…
I am working on a couple of articles that I had hoped to get into tonight’s issue but ran out of time (and wanted to do a little more research). One is on the latest foreign import numbers and the second is about consolidation of the steel producers. Look for these articles on Thursday (and perhaps on our website for members a little earlier than that).
We also have our flat rolled steel market survey in progress. We will announce our SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index, Mill Lead Times and Mill Negotiations in Thursday’s newsletter. Since all of you now have access to Premium Level access to the website you will be able to see the Power Point we create out of the survey on Friday of this week. I will put a note about how to get to it in Thursday evening’s issue. Past surveys are on the website as well.
We have had a slew of renewals, new subscribers, upgrades to Premium, registrations for our next Steel 101 workshop and for our Steel Summit Conference. Thank you to everyone as it means our hard work and dedication is paying off. We are already working on our programs for next year and we hope to begin to share those with you in the coming weeks.
As always your business is critical to us at Steel Market Update. We truly appreciate not only your business but the kind words that you are sharing about us, our programs and our newsletter.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Another day, another massive gap between the news and market sentiment. On the news side, we’ve got war in the Middle East. The devastation facing western North Carolina coming into tragic focus. And the outcome of the presidential election remains a coin toss, according to current polling.
Final thoughts
There are markets where the headlines and the prices are both crazy. This does not appear to be one of them, at least not yet.
Final thoughts
Washington loomed large in our surveys this week. Two things actually: the upcoming presidential election and the trade case against imported coated products from 10 nations.
Final thoughts
Thanks to everyone who attended our Steel Hedging 101 workshop in Chicago on Wednesday. I learned a lot from StoneX Group’s Spencer Johnson, who instructs the course, and from your good questions. One thing that Spencer said sticks with me as I write this column. Namely, that momentum drives steel prices more than other commodity markets. If you watch steel futures, you’ll see up days and down days. But it’s rare to see the momentum shifting back and forth within any given day.
Final thoughts
SMU's prices ranges for flat-rolled steel were mostly sideways on Tuesday even as futures market shot higher. I got some questions as to why hot-rolled (HR) coil futures shot higher. As best as I can tell, it might have been in response to news that China plans to roll out stimulus measures. We have details on those measures here thanks to our colleagues at CRU. The chart below gives you some idea of just how sharply upward the move in HR futures was earlier on Tuesday: