Steel Products Prices North America

SMU Hot Rolled Range Adjusted: Average Drops to $460

August 13, 2015

Steel Market Update (SMU) continued to gather pricing information on the market after our publication of our flat rolled steel price ranges and indices on Tuesday evening. We have found an abundance of information which points to the low end of the range being $440 and not $450 as we published on Tuesday. We have, therefore, adjusted our HRC range to $440 to $480 per ton with an average of $460 per ton. This is $5 per ton lower than what we produced on Tuesday and $5 per ton lower than what we saw last week.

We are hearing from our buyer sources that the mill lead times are quite short on hot rolled coil and the offers of $440-$460 are fairly common for any kind of reasonable tonnage. We understand those mills associated or having had a large percentage of business with the energy markets are the most aggressive in hot rolled.

We continue to reference Momentum as being Neutral. There are signs in the marketplace that momentum is weakening and in a “normal” market prices would be dropping from here. What is not normal are the slew of trade suits and labor negotiations. These two items appear to be enough to keep Momentum at bay, at least for the moment.