Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 1, 2015
As this issue started and I began working on my final thoughts for tonight’s issue, it began with comments from one of our service center friends about the prospect of dumping suits being filed. As the evening progressed I started to receive a number of credible comments from steel mills, service centers and others. The focus then changed to highlight what I was learning and move much of what I was writing from final thoughts into the lead article.
Here is how the original thought began:
A note from one of our readers, “Trade case, odds are 99.9% coated filed tomorrow.” (Tomorrow meaning Wednesday, June 3rd). If this service center (who also was the first person to register to attend this year’s Steel Summit Conference) is correct, kudos. If not, we will have to start some sort of contest to see who can select the date for a trade case. Maybe we should have a second contest to see what countries are filed against by product…
My thanks to those of you who have been sharing what you have been learning regarding trade cases (and other subjects). If anyone out there hears something that you believe to be credible (or raises a question that needs some research) please send it my way. You can reach me almost 24 hours a day at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
It is always good to have fresh eyes looking at your product and services and providing feedback in an effort to help you improve. Here at Steel Market Update we are constantly reviewing and revising our products, whether it be one of our workshops, upgrading our Steel Summit Conference, adding a new conference (Leadership Conference) or looking at our original product: our newsletter. Ray Culley has been reviewing our products and has been making suggestions and we are listening. After all, he was the head of Marketing for Severstal North America prior to his retirement.
We are going to change our newsletter slightly as we move away from producing the interactive graphics in the body of the newsletter. If you read the newsletter in your email inbox instead of going to our website to read it, you know there are huge gaps where the interactive graphics are and this is distracting to many readers.
So, we are going to provide links to the graphics and the newsletter should be easier for many of you to read and enjoy. I do want comments about the change to see if you prefer it the old way or the new way (no gaps).
Hectic day so I am going to sign off here.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
SMU's hot-rolled (HR) coil price slipped this week to $685 per short ton (st) on average. We also adjusted our sheet momentum indicators to lower for the first time since July.
Final Thoughts
When a mapmaker constructs a map, it’s always to the contours of the land. Or sea. That is, the mapmaker doesn’t say, “Look, these rocks really don’t belong here, so I’m not going to include them in the harbor map.” Uncharted rocks, sink ships (along with loose lips).
Final Thoughts
We had an October surprise here at SMU on Wednesday. I was working from the CRU office in Pittsburgh, and the internet connection briefly went out. As luck would have it, that happened smack in the middle of a live Community Chat webinar. Fortunately, my colleague David Schollaert stepped in, Zekelman Industries CEO Barry Zekelman rolled with the punches – and the show went on. Could there be any more October surprises in store for us and for the steel market?
Final Thoughts
We just wrapped up another Steel 101 workshop, easily the most hands-on industry workshop on steelmaking and market fundamentals, in this humble opinion. Last week on Tuesday and Wednesday, SMU’s Steel 101 was held in Starkville, Miss.
Final Thoughts
Everybody has an opinion about politics these days. More importantly for our readers, though, every business has a bottom line. A popular question in our most recent steel buyers survey asked how uncertainty around the upcoming US presidential election could affect that line.