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    Analysis

    November 21, 2016

    Final Thoughts

    Written by John Packard

    First, I want to wish every one of our USA readers a safe and pleasant Thanksgiving Holiday. Due to the holiday Steel Market Update will not publish a newsletter on Thursday. We do expect to publish an issue on Sunday evening that may be a little lighter than normal and we will return to our normal publishing schedule on Tuesday of next week.

    We asked one of our scrap sources to provide some insights into what the expectation is for prices as we move into early December negotiations between the steel mills and their suppliers. There have been rumors out there that prices could move by as much as $40-$50 per ton. Our sources are saying we should see a total of $40-$50 per ton by early January. Whether it is all collected in December remains to be seen. We were told, “There are a handful of mills here and there that might have a decent amount of inventory on the ground, and some dealers do as well, but that is about where the headwinds for scrap prices end.  Plenty of other mills and the export docks, as well as many other dealers, do not have deep inventories.  Frankly I am not sure how much scrap is in the available reservoir ready to be shipped to mills now that the demand dynamics have changed.  The Turks seem to have taken a pause in buying but it’s pretty clear they will be back shortly.  As US demand picks up and pig iron prices sky rocket we are settling in for stronger markets and better volumes than we have experienced in our industry for some time.” 

    John Packard

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