Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
June 17, 2015
On Thursday evening I attended an Association of Steel Distributors (ASD) regional meeting in Chicago. Although the program had been set a couple of months ago, the timing was spot on as they had Larry Friedman, trade attorney with Barnes, Richardson & Colburn, LLP. He did an excellent job of positioning where the idea of trade laws came from, what has to be proven in order to win a trade case and why the five countries named in the latest coated trade case were selected. I am getting his Power Point slides and we will produce an article on the subject in Sunday night’s issue.
What was interesting was there were a couple of questions regarding the TPP and TPA legislation and we happen to have an article on the exact subject in tonight’s issue. So, I guess we are leaning in the right direction with our reporting (thank you Sandy).
Our Steel Summit workshop is getting a lot of buzz during our time here in Chicago. Everyone is excited with the program we have put together and we are in the process of adding a couple of the final pieces to the puzzle which we will get out to everyone soon. This will be an excellent networking event based on the companies who have registered so far. We have last year’s attending companies on our website and we are finding that we are getting support from those who attended last year, many of them increasing the number of people who will be attending from their company. We are also seeing new companies have found us or learned about our conference. This is one that will be worth the money. There will be some surprises as we work to make this not only a networking, information gathering, forecasting conference but to make it an “Event” in the true sense of the word. There is nothing worse than good subjects with boring or self-serving speakers. It is also important to have a laugh or two as this business can be so serious at times. Come to Atlanta on September 1st and 2nd to see what we (and everyone else) is talking about. Details are on the website or you can click here.
Tonight’s issue is running a little later than usual due to my travels and meetings. The ASD did a great job tonight as did Bank of America Merrill Lynch last night where I spoke.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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Final thoughts
SMU has heard from some larger buyers who have stepped back into the market to buy at prices that, if not at a bottom, they assess to be close to one. Is it enough to stretch out lead times and send prices upward again? Or do we continue to scrape along the mid-$600s per short ton (st) as we have been doing for most of the last month?
Final thoughts
Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves had some insightful things to say today about the steel market and about a conference we suspect might be Steel Summit.
Final thoughts
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, when you add in some commentary from respected peers in the steel industry to those pictures, that may shoot you up to five thousand words, at least. In that spirit, we’ve added some snapshots from our market survey this week, along with some comments from market participants.
Final thoughts
I thought we’d have more clarity this week on Section 232, Mexico, and a potential carve-out for steel melted and poured in Brazil. As of right now, the only official comment I have is from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).
Final thoughts
There are just 40 days left until the 2024 SMU Steel Summit gets underway on Aug. 26 at the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC) in Atlanta. And I’m pleased to announce that it's official now: More than 1,000 people have registered to at attend! Another big development: The desktop version of the networking app for the event has officially launched!