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    SMU Price Ranges & Indices: Essentially Unchanged for Another Week

    Written by John Packard


    Flat rolled steel prices remained essentially unchanged for yet another week. We did pick up a break in the $600 barrier on hot rolled steel. However, we were only able to tie that price level to one Canadian mill into the Chicago market. The other mills appear to be holding much closer to $610-$620 per ton with some higher price offers reaching the $640 per ton mark. We moved both the high and low end of the range for HRC with the net result being no change.

    When it comes to cold rolled we found one small mill below $40.00/cwt but most mills are above that level. When it came to coated steels we did not find any mill breaking through the $40.00/cwt base level and, in fact we spoke with a couple of mills who reported after a surge in orders at the lower level there was not need to go down to $40.00/cwt and most mills were reported to have their galvanized base prices at $40.50/cwt-$41.50/cwt.

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    SMU Survey: Mill willingness to negotiate price at lowest levels since 2021

    The majority of steel buyers responding to our latest market survey reported that mills continue to hold a firm grip on prices. The share of buyers reporting that mills were negotiable fell this week to the lowest rate seen in over five years. Every two weeks, SMU surveys service center and manufacturer buyers asking if mills are negotiable on new spot sheet and plate orders. In this week’s survey, just 3% of respondents said mills were willing to talk price to secure an order (Figure 1). This is down 11 percentage points from our mid-October survey.