Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 13, 2015
I am scheduled to be in Two Harbors, Minnesota on July 27th. I anticipate touring an iron ore mine prior to boarding the M/V James R Barker along with Interlake Steamship Company Vice President, Brendan O’Conner. Once the vessel self loads approximately 58,000 tons of iron ore pellets we will move across Lake Superior, through the Sault Locks on our way to Lake Michigan. We will travel down the length of Lake Michigan to ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor plant where the vessel will unload its cargo. The voyage is expected to take 3 days during which I will be reporting from the deck (or cabin) of the ship and answering your questions and reporting about the ship, crew, Jones Act, pellets (vs. iron ore fines) and where is the Edmund Fitzgerald if time permits…
You can follow my travels in various ways – I will be writing articles for the Thursday, July 30th edition of our newsletter. I will also be writing blog posts which can be read on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com and I will be sending out Tweets from our company Twitter account #SMUsteel. If I have time I may post one or two articles on LinkedIn or our company facebook account. You won’t need to be a subscriber to follow along.
For those of you who attended last year’s 4th Steel Summit Conference you may be interested in knowing that we are very close to having already registered as many people for this year’s Summit as we had last year when the doors opened. We anticipate that we will host our largest crowd ever at this year’s conference in Atlanta.
Early bird registration ends at midnight, July 15th (end of the day on Wednesday of this week). If you don’t have all your permissions but know you are coming contact our office and we will provide you with an invoice at the early bird discounted rate. You can reach us at: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
On Thursday our full rate will apply which is $1200 per person with SMU member companies (subscribers) eligible for a $100 per person member discount.
We did have a little hiccup with the registration page on Tuesday afternoon. If you happen to not be able to access the web registration page for some reason please contact our office: 800-432-3475 or Diana at 770-561-4470 and we will make sure your information is collected and you are registered for the event.
We have been working diligently on our new Steel Market Update Events App (SMU Events). The little button to the left of this paragraph is what our App will look like on iTunes or the Google store. Anyone can download it once it is available (in about a week) but only those registered for our 5th Steel Summit Conference will have the ability to get into the App, navigate its features and most importantly network with the other attendees, sponsors, exhibitors and SMU Events staff. We believe this App will provide a new way of interacting with others prior to the conference. It will be crucial to maximizing your experience during the conference (including real-time polling during some of the speaker panels). We are very excited about launching this new product and enhancing the Value you will receive from a SMU Event.
There is a chance that you will see the App in iTunes and the Google store prior to us sending out the invitation to those registered to download the App. This is us testing what we have been loading into the App. We would ask that you hold off downloading it until we have it ready for you. You will need a password to get into the App so it is just a pretty button until we provide those passwords.
The App will be available for your smart phones and iPads. There will be a separate version that works with laptops and regular computers. We will soon be sending instructions on how to download the App and to set up your account (it is easy, I have already done it and I am no computer wiz…).
We are truly excited about the quality of the program, our speakers and the opportunity for some exceptional networking to occur between our attendees, speakers, sponsors and exhibitors. I hope that you and other members of your company will join us in Atlanta on the evening of August 31st, September 1st and 2nd for the 5th Steel Summit Conference.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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Final Thoughts
We just wrapped another Steel 101 Workshop, where you take what you learned in the classroom into the steel mill.
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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.
Final Thoughts
I think there is an obvious case for sheet and plate prices going higher from here. That’s because, on a very basic level, the floor for flat-rolled steel prices, which is typically provided by imports, is now significantly higher than it was a week ago.