Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

Written by John Packard


We discovered earlier today that our office phones (including our 800 number) are down and calls are not being transferred or going to voicemail. We are in touch with Comcast to get the issue resolved. Although we understand it is a system wide failure not just our phones. In the meantime, if you need to reach the office regarding questions, registration or other issues please contact Brett Linton at 706-216-2140. He can also be reached at: Brett@SteelMarketUpdate.com. If you need to speak with me I can be reached at 770-596-6268 or by email at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. You can keep these numbers and email addresses in your SMU “happy place” should you ever have issues trying to reach our offices.

We have officially exceeded the number of registrations we had for last year’s Steel Summit Conference and we still have 48 days to go. We do have a list of companies listed on our website (just below the sponsors on the right hand side of the Steel Summit pages). If you want to know who exactly is registered you will need to be registered yourself. Then you can use our SMU Events App (available in your App store at no cost) to search attendees.

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.