Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
January 29, 2016
We will begin our early February flat rolled steel market analysis on Monday. If you receive an invitation to participate please take a few moments to click on the link and respond to our questionnaire. We will produce a few articles on the results of our queries on Thursday for our Executive level members. Our Premium members will have access to our Power Point presentation on Friday afternoon once we have posted it on our website.
Scrap prices are starting to trade and the early trades have been at sideways numbers (same as January). However, the long term prognosis for scrap prices is not so rosy. Here is what one of our sources told us late on Friday, “Feb trading is just beginning but initial sales are sideways. On a broad scale we are seeing lower demand as mills have restocked and order books remain weak, this is balanced by short supply due to weather and transportation issues. Although recent export sales to Turkey have dropped over $10mt US exporters have not dropped buy prices because they are still covering old sales at the higher levels. It is my opinion March will bring lower prices as weather improves and export will continue to drop.”
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John Packard
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Final thoughts
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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!