Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
October 12, 2016
In David Feldstein’s article on the HRC Futures market he correctly points out one of the factors that steel buyers need to watch closely is the value of the dollar against the currency of the international steel trading nations. As the dollar increases in value those wanting to ship steel here also increases. As the dollar falls in value the interest in sending steel here also falls off.
Our November Steel 101 workshop is CLOSED and we have a wait list established but I do not believe we will be able to add anymore people to this workshop. We recommend that you register for our late January workshop which will be held in Huntsville, Alabama and will include a tour of the Nucor Decatur EAF facility. I am looking forward to this tour as I have not been to the Decatur plant before and they have a relatively new automotive quality coating line at this facility. We will have more details about the hotel, how to register, etc. in the coming days. We are completing our negotiations with the hotels right now.
I want to welcome all of the new subscribers/members who have joined SMU over the past couple of weeks. I also want to welcome those of you who were Executive members that have upgraded to Premium. I encourage our new members to reach out to us with any questions that you may have. If you have questions about the website (how to log in, move about the site and where the key content is located) I recommend you contact Brett Linton at: Brett@SteelMarketUpdate.com. If you have general questions, comments or suggestions please send them to my attention at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
We will begin our next flat rolled steel market trends analysis next Monday. I am always looking for steel people who have a good working knowledge about the industry, trends and pricing to participate in our questionnaire. If interested please contact me at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com and we will review with you what we are looking for out of our survey respondents. You are also welcome to call me at 800-432-3475.
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
Cleveland-Cliffs is seeking $750 per short ton (st) for hot-rolled coil. That’s $20/st above where the steelmaker had been. It’s also $30/st above Nucor, which is at $720/st this week. We've seen prices increase incrementally this week. SMU's HR price, for example, stands at $690/st on average, up $5/st from last week. The questions now are whether a number well above $700/st will stick, whether other mills will follow Cliffs, and whether there is enough demand to support higher prices.
Final thoughts
We got a little flack for adjusting our sheet momentum indicators to neutral last week. To be clear, we didn’t adjust them to lower. Part of the reason we moved them to neutral was because there are some unusual cross-currents in the current market. On the news side, you could make a case that there should nowhere to go but up.
Final thoughts
I think all of us know that sometimes courtships go wrong. A misplaced word or deed and soon things can go sideways, and not in the prices sense. Such could be the case with Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel’s play for U.S. Steel.
Final thoughts
We’re starting to see some impacts of the big trade case filed last week against imports of coated flat-rolled steel from 10 nations. Namely, we’ve heard that a range of traders have stopped offering material from Vietnam. An alleged dumping margin of nearly 160% will do that. Especially amid chatter of critical circumstances.
Final thoughts
The phrase “political football” has been tossed around a lot lately. (Pun probably intended.) For the humble journalists at SMU who thought the week following Steel Summit would prove a quiet one… the news cycle had other ideas