Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
August 19, 2015
You may have noticed that I haven’t been pushing the Steel Summit Conference quite as much as in the past. This is due to the fact that we are coming close to filling the space allotted. We are expecting a full house and a tremendous program. If you would like to attend we have not prevented anyone from registering which you can do online or through our office: 800-432-3475.
I would like to see more people register for our next Steel 101 workshop which will be held in Davenport, Iowa. Those of you in Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Illinois here is an opportunity to go through an exceptional program and tour a working steel mill. You can find more details about the workshop and registration on our website. You are also welcome to contact us in our office with questions or to register (and for those of you in the rest of the country you are invited to join us in Iowa as well!).
We will have more survey articles in Sunday night’s edition of Steel Market Update. For our Premium level members we will produce our second Premium newsletter this week tomorrow and we should have the survey Power Point presentation online by Friday afternoon.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher

John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts
Now that the USS/Nippon deal has been completed, what's next?

Final Thoughts
Getting back to the price increases I mentioned at the top of this article, to what extent are they aimed at raising prices and to what extent are they aimed at stopping the bleeding that was happening in the second half of May, before President Trump announced the 50% tariff?

Final Thoughts
We just wrapped another Steel 101 Workshop, where you take what you learned in the classroom into the steel mill.

Final Thoughts
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.