Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
December 24, 2015
This is the last issue of Steel Market Update for this calendar year. We will not publish an issue on Thursday as it is New Year’s Eve and we will all be out celebrating what we hope will be a much stronger New Year. our offices will be open on Wednesday and for the first half of the day on Thursday.
In case it means anything, Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research is forecasting that 2016 will be a better year than 2015 and 2017 will be even better than 2016. So, there is light at the end of this tunnel and we are looking forward to a good 2016.
I want to take a moment to thank each and every one of you for your business, support of our workshops and conferences and spreading the word about our little company. Please keep it up in the New Year as we continue to grow and to bite on the tail of our competition.
We are part of the fabric of the steel industry. An industry which has struggled over the past 25 years and continues to reinvent itself with new steels, consolidation, the closure of outdated mills and the opening of new state of the art facilities. We will have another one coming online by mid-2016, Big River Steel. SMU will host one of our Steel 101 workshops in Memphis, Tennessee probably in October and we will take our attendees to tour Big River Steel.
The steel industry has been good to me and my family and I hope it has done the same for you and yours.
From all of us here at Steel Market Update we want to wish each and every one of your a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!
John Packard, Founder & Publisher, Steel Market Update
John Packard
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Final thoughts
Cleveland-Cliffs is seeking $750 per short ton (st) for hot-rolled coil. That’s $20/st above where the steelmaker had been. It’s also $30/st above Nucor, which is at $720/st this week. We've seen prices increase incrementally this week. SMU's HR price, for example, stands at $690/st on average, up $5/st from last week. The questions now are whether a number well above $700/st will stick, whether other mills will follow Cliffs, and whether there is enough demand to support higher prices.
Final thoughts
We got a little flack for adjusting our sheet momentum indicators to neutral last week. To be clear, we didn’t adjust them to lower. Part of the reason we moved them to neutral was because there are some unusual cross-currents in the current market. On the news side, you could make a case that there should nowhere to go but up.
Final thoughts
I think all of us know that sometimes courtships go wrong. A misplaced word or deed and soon things can go sideways, and not in the prices sense. Such could be the case with Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel’s play for U.S. Steel.
Final thoughts
We’re starting to see some impacts of the big trade case filed last week against imports of coated flat-rolled steel from 10 nations. Namely, we’ve heard that a range of traders have stopped offering material from Vietnam. An alleged dumping margin of nearly 160% will do that. Especially amid chatter of critical circumstances.
Final thoughts
The phrase “political football” has been tossed around a lot lately. (Pun probably intended.) For the humble journalists at SMU who thought the week following Steel Summit would prove a quiet one… the news cycle had other ideas