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    Analysis

    September 29, 2014

    Final Thoughts

    Written by John Packard

    Today is the last day of the month and the last day of the 3rd Quarter 2014. According to one of the attorney’s who spoke at our Steel Summit Conference at the beginning of September today is the day that the domestic mills would want to file a dumping suit so they would not have to include all of the 3rd Quarter data should they wait until 4Q to file. I don’t know how much of an inconvenience or how costly it is to produce the 3rd Quarter data but it would make sense that if the filing is ready and the mills are committed to filing dumping suits that they would be entered today. So, we are watching carefully to see if anything is happening and so far, as of late this afternoon, we are not aware of any suits being filed.

    As I spoke with large hot rolled buyers one pointed out that the domestic mills don’t really need to lower prices much lower than were they currently are as the foreign offers have actually gotten more expensive. Hot rolled coil is being offered around $610 per ton Houston. The spread for a large tonnage buyer is no more than $30 to $50 per ton which is not enough to justify waiting for the steel or the possible other risks associated with buying foreign steel.

    John Packard

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