Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
October 16, 2015
We will begin our next flat rolled steel market analysis with an invitation to participate in our questionnaire going out at 8 AM on Monday morning. If you receive an invite please take a few minutes to click on the link and complete the questionnaire.
Steel Market Update will be moving our headquarters over the next couple of weeks. We anticipate being set up and operating out of our new offices in Hobe Sound, Florida by November 1st. We do not expect any issues with any of our publications, workshops, conferences or our website as we make the transition further south. We will be in our Georgia offices all this week and I am not scheduled to travel anywhere this week so I can be reached at 800-432-3475 or by email at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com should you have any questions or just want to chat.
My next speaking engagement is at the Cowen & Company conference which will be held in New York City on November 10th and 11th. Then I will be speaking at the Steel Meeting at the HARDI convention which will be in Orlando, Florida on December 5-8th.
Our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop will be held in Starkville, Mississippi on January 19-20, 2016 and will include a tour of the SDI Columbus steel mill. Registration is open for the January program. If you have any questions please contact us in our office: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or 800-432-3475.
In March we will host our first Leadership Conference at PGA National Golf Club & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. The dates are March 7-9th and more details will be coming out soon.
The dates for next year’s Steel Summit Conference will be August 30-31, 2016 and it will be in Atlanta, Georgia. Mark your calendars now as we are expecting another great crowd of steel people.
Early reports are saying ferrous scrap prices will move sideways to slightly lower ($0-$20) once we get into November. October prices were down $50 to $60 per gross ton.
We have three steel plants who are either in the process of being shut down (Fairfield except for coating line) or have received WARN notices: USS Granite City and AK Steel Ashland. The Granite City and Ashland plants are not for sure yet. US Steel gave the Granite City WARN notices earlier this year and then did not follow through on them. Restriction of supply is one possible way of getting prices to reverse direction. We will continue to watch the developments as they occur.
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
Another day, another massive gap between the news and market sentiment. On the news side, we’ve got war in the Middle East. The devastation facing western North Carolina coming into tragic focus. And the outcome of the presidential election remains a coin toss, according to current polling.
Final thoughts
There are markets where the headlines and the prices are both crazy. This does not appear to be one of them, at least not yet.
Final thoughts
Washington loomed large in our surveys this week. Two things actually: the upcoming presidential election and the trade case against imported coated products from 10 nations.
Final thoughts
Thanks to everyone who attended our Steel Hedging 101 workshop in Chicago on Wednesday. I learned a lot from StoneX Group’s Spencer Johnson, who instructs the course, and from your good questions. One thing that Spencer said sticks with me as I write this column. Namely, that momentum drives steel prices more than other commodity markets. If you watch steel futures, you’ll see up days and down days. But it’s rare to see the momentum shifting back and forth within any given day.
Final thoughts
SMU's prices ranges for flat-rolled steel were mostly sideways on Tuesday even as futures market shot higher. I got some questions as to why hot-rolled (HR) coil futures shot higher. As best as I can tell, it might have been in response to news that China plans to roll out stimulus measures. We have details on those measures here thanks to our colleagues at CRU. The chart below gives you some idea of just how sharply upward the move in HR futures was earlier on Tuesday: