Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
December 7, 2015
I will have a detailed report regarding the HARDI annual conference in Thursday evening’s issue. However, the news is good for those involved in the construction industries with Alan Beaulieu, Chief Economist for HARDI and co-founder of the Institute for Trend Research, proclaiming 2016 will be better than 2015 and 2017 will be even better than 2016.
There are rumors that Nucor will be the first to announce a price increase. This makes sense to me based on a quick analysis I did on mill lead times and found that Nucor mills were the furthest out. Part of the stretch may be due to the holidays and maintenance schedules but mills like Berkeley were reporting galvanized lead times as being as far out as the first week of March. Others, like AK Steel, are reporting lead times as still being in January. So, we have a mixed bag and that may be one of the reasons why the mills are still holding back from making any “official” announcements.
Scrap for December is sideways (worst case) to up as much as $15-$20 per gross ton depending on the region. Scrap dealers are telling us they expect January prices to be higher once again and the early prognostications are $20 to $40 per ton. This may change in the coming weeks but it is a bullish sign for the steel industry and the psychology of the market.
However, we still need lead times to begin to extend and inventories to get to a point where service centers do not need to dump inventory. We will be watching these two keys closely in the coming weeks.
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!