Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
March 23, 2016
As we head into the Good Friday and Easter weekend holiday we want to wish everyone an enjoyable time with family and friends. Steel Market Update will not publish a newsletter on Sunday so our next official publication will be on Tuesday evening of next week.
Even so, that should not prevent you for communicating with us over the weekend. We will respond to your calls and we always respond to our emails.
Speaking of emails we have been getting a number of positive comments over the past couple of days.
“SMU Team, happy Thursday, I want to tell you that I treat your reports as my bible. Thank you for your in-depth analysis and diverse topics.” Linda Ortepi, Corporate Buyer-Raw Materials, Kirchoff Automotive.
We also saw a comment this morning from someone on a free trial, “Peter, first of all thank you for article and aggregated data. It certainly helps to explain why HRC has diverged so strongly from long products on the recent pricing trend.” He then went on to ask a question about the classification of one of the long products.
Readers enjoy our newsletter for a wide variety of reasons and we enjoy hearing from you. Recently we heard from a small service center who told us they used our Price Estimator on our website to help them value their inventory at the end of the month. Creative and independent way to keep the banks and bankers happy…
If you enjoy Steel Market Update drop us a line. We would love to hear from you: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
If for some reason you are not pleased – I want to hear from you so we can address whatever your concern(s) might be.
Please stay safe over the weekend and I will be the one with the bike shorts and helmet zipping around South Florida’s bike paths.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final thoughts
Unless you've been under a rock, you know by know that Nucor's published HR price for this week is $760 per short ton, down $65/st from the company’s $825/st a week ago. I could use more colorful words. But I think it’s safe to say that most of the market was not expecting this. For starters, US sheet mills never announce price decreases. (OK, not never. It has come to my attention that Severstal North America rescinded a price increase back on Feb. 14, 2012. And it caused quite the ruckus.)
Final thoughts
Is it just me, or does it seem like the summer doldrums might have arrived a little early? I could be wrong there. It’s possible we could see a jump in prices should buyers need to step back into the market to restock. I’ll be curious to see what service center inventories are when we update those figures on May 15. In the meantime, just about everyone we survey thinks HR prices have peaked or soon will. (See slide 17 in the April 26 survey.) Lead times have flattened out. And some of you tell me that you’re starting to see signs of them pulling back. (We’ll know more when we update our lead time data on Thursday.)
Final thoughts
Everybody has a plan… until they’ve dealt with volatility in the HRC market. While Mike Tyson’s original quote was about getting punched in the mouth, it’s unlikely the ex-champ has gone many pricing rounds with hot-rolled coil.
Final thoughts
Hold-rolled (HR) prices held roughly steady this week after slipping for much of April. I don’t have any spicy quotes to offer about mostly flat prices. Besides, a lot of the questions I’ve gotten recently have been about demand. Some of you tell me that it’s still stable or improving. Others tell me that it’s suddenly dried up.
Final thoughts
What a difference a month makes. In late March, it seemed like the US hot-rolled (HR) coil market was poised to cycle upward. Large buyers had re-entered the market and placed big orders earlier in the month. Several outages were underway or upcoming. And expectations were that lead times would continue to extend. Cliffs said […]