Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
December 7, 2016
Scrap prices still appear to be up anywhere from $40 per ton (very early deals) to as much as $50 per ton with most of the deals done late this week in the +$50 range. Dealers have sold all of the scrap they want to dispose of during the month of December. One of our sources pointed to foreign deals being done with one of the domestic steel mills in the $300 per metric ton delivered to the USA mills.
In the Ohio Valley we heard scrap prices settled at: HMS = $250-$260 per gross ton; Shred = $285-$290 per gross ton and busheling = $280-$290 per gross ton. We heard from another source who put the overall market at HMS = $240-$250 per gross ton; shred at $265-$275 per gross ton and busheling at $280-$290 per gross ton. All prices are delivered to the domestic steel mills.
We learned late today that demand from sheet mills is what is driving scrap prices. At the moment the export market has been quiet due to a weakening Lira in Turkey and bulk freight rates increasing – both making U.S. scrap more expensive.
Even so, the expectation is we will see additional upward pressure on scrap prices as we head into January. After that we will need to wait and see if demand is strong enough to sustain the market.
A note about our business. The year 2016 will be a record year for Steel Market Update both in terms of newsletter subscriptions as well as the success of our workshops and our Steel Summit Conference. Recently we are finding that for every Executive level membership we sell, we sell two Premiums. We are also seeing a number of our existing Executive customers converting their memberships to Premium in order to get access to our survey data and other proprietary information and analysis we are producing on a weekly basis. If you have interest in learning more about upgrading your subscription please contact me at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com or by phone at 800-432-3475.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
SMU's hot-rolled (HR) coil price slipped this week to $685 per short ton (st) on average. We also adjusted our sheet momentum indicators to lower for the first time since July.
Final Thoughts
When a mapmaker constructs a map, it’s always to the contours of the land. Or sea. That is, the mapmaker doesn’t say, “Look, these rocks really don’t belong here, so I’m not going to include them in the harbor map.” Uncharted rocks, sink ships (along with loose lips).
Final Thoughts
We had an October surprise here at SMU on Wednesday. I was working from the CRU office in Pittsburgh, and the internet connection briefly went out. As luck would have it, that happened smack in the middle of a live Community Chat webinar. Fortunately, my colleague David Schollaert stepped in, Zekelman Industries CEO Barry Zekelman rolled with the punches – and the show went on. Could there be any more October surprises in store for us and for the steel market?
Final Thoughts
We just wrapped up another Steel 101 workshop, easily the most hands-on industry workshop on steelmaking and market fundamentals, in this humble opinion. Last week on Tuesday and Wednesday, SMU’s Steel 101 was held in Starkville, Miss.
Final Thoughts
Everybody has an opinion about politics these days. More importantly for our readers, though, every business has a bottom line. A popular question in our most recent steel buyers survey asked how uncertainty around the upcoming US presidential election could affect that line.