Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
August 15, 2014
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) reported shipment and inventory data to paid subscribers on Friday. The steel industry media will receive the data on Monday. Steel Market Update will produce a number of reports based on the MSCI data. We will have our normal shipment and inventories for the U.S. and Canada for our Executive members. We should have that up on the website by late A.M. or early in the P.M. on Monday and accessible to both our Executive and Premium members (it will also be published in our Tuesday evening newsletter).
Timna Tanners of Bank of America Merrill Lynch Research pointed out in a note to her clients that total steel inventories rose 2 percent month over month and 11 percent year over year and she expects inventories to continue to rise in August due to strong foreign steel imports. Timna will be one of our featured speakers at this year’s Steel Summit Conference as she teams up with John Anton of IHS Global Insight to provide steel and commodity forecasts and to discuss how consolidation may impact the steel industry. Our conference is now just slightly more than two weeks away (September 3 & 4).
Our Premium level subscribers will receive a special supplemental newsletter on Monday. In it will be an analysis done by Peter Wright which shows carbon steel shipments in July 2014 were at the highest level for any July since 2008 (prior to the economic meltdown). Our Premium members will also receive our Service Center Inventory Excess/Deficit analysis. As the Premium articles are produced and placed 
in the website the Premium members, when logged in, will see the premium banner in the rolling articles on our Home Page and will be able to access the articles prior to the actual supplemental issue being released (the Premium articles are not visible to non-Premium Level subscribers).
If you would like to upgrade to Premium Level you can do so through our office: 800-432-3475.
As I mentioned above we are only a couple of weeks away from our 4th Steel Summit Conference and our first two day conference program. We have 22 speakers and, at the moment, over 150 people committed to attend our event. We believe we will be close to “sold out” as the existing facility holds 180 people (although we do have an option to take over larger space should we exceed 180 attendees).There is a partial list of the attending companies on our website on the right hand side of the Steel Summit home page.
A note to those of you who are attending (or still planning on attending) – the hotel we are using is the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway hotel. Our room block is overbooked and our special rate is no longer available. There is also a Marriott Springhill Suites Gateway Hotel located across the street from the Marriott. We are still taking registrations for the conference on our website or you can contact our office at 800-432-3475. The dress code is business casual, this is a great time to wear your company colors. We hope we will see you in Atlanta.
We will begin a new flat rolled steel market survey on Monday of this week. The survey invitations will remain open until 3 PM Thursday afternoon. If you receive an invitation please take a minute to click on the link and respond to our questionnaire on the SurveyMonkey.com website. All responses are kept confidential and will not be attributed to you or your company.
As always we thank you for your business which is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
Come join me and the entire Steel Market Update team in Atlanta…
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.