Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
March 16, 2016
OK, so it’s March Madness and most of our readers want to watch their favorite team or test their skills at nailing their bracket and bragging rights around the water cooler in the morning. For the steel industry March Madness is taking a different meaning. More price increase announcements, full order books and a win (at least from my perspective) on the hot rolled dumping (AD) ruling on Tuesday.
We have a much longer than normal newsletter this evening. There are a couple of articles about the hot rolled ruling and what the status of each of the flat rolled suits stand at this time. It is important to note that the margins produced to date are not final. The margin rates will be used to determine the cash deposit necessary for each country (actually for the importer of record – that is the person responsible for paying any monies) who chooses to ship steel to the U.S. now that the preliminary margins (including countervailing duties and critical circumstances) have been determined.
When speaking with attorney Lewis Leibowitz both yesterday and today on the subject we thought it was important for companies to understand that all of the exclusion requests on hot rolled have been denied. The Department of Commerce has even denied exclusions requested for products that technically are not produced here in the United States!
A note to our Premium level members: We will have our survey power point presentation available online sometime on Friday afternoon. We will also publish a Premium supplemental issue of our newsletter in the morning. In that issue will be a much more detailed analysis of the MSCI data along with our Apparent Excess/Deficit forecast for March, April, May, June and July.
If you would like to learn more about what Premium membership includes, pricing and how to register please contact me at 800-432-3475 or by email: 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!