Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
March 6, 2017
Just to make sure that everyone saw this: SMU received a note from a Nucor spokesperson that their Louisiana DRI facility would be back up later this week, “Repairs at our Louisiana DRI plant are ahead of schedule and we plan to restart the plant this week. An equipment failure resulted in the need to temporarily suspend operations. This temporary suspension in operations has not impacted production at any of Nucor’s steel mills, nor has it impacted our 180 teammates who work at the DRI plant.”
I am thinking about bringing in a high-power, well known speaker to close our conference this year. It would be someone that most of the attendees have seen on TV as a financial or political analyst (or both). I would like to get some feedback from those who will be attending our SMU Steel Summit Conference this year, or who are considering attending as I would like to know if a well-known TV personality would help convince you to attend (and to remain for the entire conference)? You can provide me feedback by sending me an email at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. Also, if you have a TV financial, political or media personality you think would be a good fit for our conference please let me know.
I am off to New Orleans first thing Wednesday morning. I am attending the ASD and FMA conferences. If you are going to be there and would like a few minutes to chat, have lunch or dinner, please send me an email or text.
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
Even before the news about Mexico, I didn’t want to overstate the magnitude of the change in momentum. As far as we could tell, there hadn’t been a frenzy of new ordering following President Trump’s announcement of 50% Section 232 tariffs. But higher tariffs had unquestionably raised prices for imports, which typically provide the floor for domestic pricing. We’d heard, for example, that prices below $800 per short ton for hot-rolled (HR) coil were gone from the domestic market – even for larger buyers.