Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

Written by John Packard


On Tuesday evening we published an article regarding the HARDI wholesaler steel conference call. During the call one of the wholesalers referred to Kloeckner Metals Corporation as one of the service centers they were having competitive issues with. An executive with Kloeckner saw our article and responded to the comment made and quoted in our article: “As Kloeckner Metals Corporation was specifically mentioned in this article I feel compelled to comment. Kloeckner Metals Corporation is fully supporting all announced mill increases in the transactional (spot) market contrary to the comment by an unidentified wholesaler.”

For those of you expecting the preliminary determination of antidumping (AD) on cold rolled steel today be advised that the announcement has been moved out four business days. Here is our understanding as of today:

 –  Because of the snow on January 23 and 24, Commerce added four business days to all deadlines in all cases pending before the Department (AD/CVD, foreign trade zone proceedings and others).
 –  The cold-rolled determination is now due February 29 (four business days after the 23d), and the hot-rolled determination is due March 14 (four business days after the announced date of March 8).
 –  The determinations will be announced the following business day in each case (March 1 and March 15, respectively).

I have been getting inquiries lately regarding our Steel Sales Training Program which, at this point in time, is a custom workshop aimed at distributors in the steel space. If your company has some interest – whether in a custom program developed specifically for your company or, you might only have one to a few people that you feel would benefit from such a program, please let me know. We have been looking at this workshop as one that we could produce on a more generalized basis for a mixed audience. You can reach me at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.

As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.

John Packard, Publisher

Latest in Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

As Wolfe Research’s Timna Tanners put it in her opening talk at Tampa on Monday afternoon, we’re living in a world of “Trumplications” now. That probably means – at least in the short term – higher scrap costs, lower imports from countries hit with or threated tariffs, and higher steel prices. SMU data reflects that. Scrap went up in January. More than 75% of the respondents to our more recent survey expect scrap to go up again February, maybe by a lot. Lead times, meanwhile, have been ticking upward this month. It started with hot-rolled coil and plate earlier this month. Now we’re seeing coated lead times extending too.