Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
August 26, 2015
We are in the “home stretch” as our 5th Steel Summit Conference is just over the horizon. We continue to work on the finishing touches, checking to make sure we have all the speaker presentations (a number of them are waiting until the last minute so the presentation is in sync with world and domestic events) and gathering all of the equipment/publications, etc. we need to bring to the conference. A few more hair-raising (except for me) days and it will be go time.
A note for those who have not noticed. We have added a Managing Price Risk II workshop which will be held in New York City at the CME Group building on November 11-12th. We have opened registration and we will have much more information on the website after the conclusion of next week’s conference.
And our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop in October is also open for registration. More details can be found by clicking here.
We are of the opinion that buyers need to be very careful over the next few weeks. The combination of UAW and USW contract negotiations could provide some very interesting scenarios. I was speaking with a consultant friend of mine recently who made the observation that many of the steel buyers out there today have never lived through a strike or supply squeeze created by a mill being shut down. The last one was in the mid 1980’s – 20 years ago.
At the same time we could see the market go in the opposite direction should one of the automotive companies be hit by a strike. An automotive strike could create extra line time on the mills and this may even be exacerbated if all of the mills built an extra 30 days worth of inventories in order to protect their automotive customers against a steel strike/lockout scenario.
Now is a good time to keep your eyes and ears open (and to stay tuned to SMU).
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
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!