Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
February 24, 2016
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
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!