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    Analysis

    November 30, 2015

    Final Thoughts

    Written by John Packard

    For our U.S. customers, welcome back from the Thanksgiving Holiday. We are a little more than three weeks from our next break for the Christmas and New Year Holidays. Then we plow into 2016 and my gut tells me by then things may begin to change. We still have our SMU Price Momentum Indicator pointing toward lower flat rolled steel prices but, well, we will wait and see what happens as scrap negotiations get underway for December (and snow flies in the Midwest)…

    I was sorry to see the email from the General Manager of CRU’s steel business who informed me on Thanksgiving Day that they would no longer support our re-publishing of their hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and plate indices. They told us, “Our view is that publishing our prices to potential customers, for what is a small sum of money, is not to our advantage.” They also advised us that they will enforce their copyright, “…Copyright on our prices is something we are pursuring (sic) vigorously and this has proven costly for some people who did not take it seriously…” So, there you have it.

    John Packard

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