Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
September 25, 2015
We will be in Iowa next week for one of our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshops. We are looking forward to working with SSAB again, as we did a workshop in Mobile, Alabama and toured their Alabama facility. This is our first trip to Iowa.
We are working on ironing out the details on our next Steel 101 workshop which is expected to be in the south in January 2016. We will provide details once they are available.
We also intend to provide more details from last week’s flat rolled steel market analysis in Tuesday evening’s edition of our newsletter.
For our Premium members we will provide our Key Market Indicators in tomorrow’s Premium supplemental issue.
This week will be a busy week for the industry as both US Steel and ArcelorMittal are back at the negotiation tables with the United Steelworkers, as we reported in one of tonight’s articles we will learn if Fiat Chrysler workers vote not to accept the contract and we will have the beginning of negotiations on ferrous scrap prices which are expected to plummet $20 to $50 per gross ton.
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
Can technology help with pig iron and DRI/HBI tariffs?

Final Thoughts
Tariff-related noise aside, there is one basic factor keeping buyers on the sidelines. Despite recent declines, HR prices remain at historically high levels. And there is no obvious support to keep them there.

Final Thoughts
United Airlines raised eyebrows earlier this month when it provided two forecasts for 2025 – one assuming a relatively stable economy and another assuming a recession. The reason? Uncertainty around the impact of President Trump’s policy shocks on the broader economy. And it sometimes feels like we’re seeing a battle between those two narratives (stable vs recession) play out within in the pages of this newsletter.

Final Thoughts
Despite some scary headlines lately (especially about Trump potentially firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell) this is not October 2008 (financial crisis) or March 2020 (onset of the pandemic). But it sure seems like we’ve taken a relatively strong economy and poured a thick sauce of uncertainty over it.

Final Thoughts
I put some of our survey data through ChatGpt, with interesting results.