Final Thoughts

First, a note about our price ranges and indices published on Tuesday evening. One of the things that I saw during my collection process was what I perceived as strength or weakness in the numbers on certain products. What do I mean by that? When checking our flat rolled steel market trends survey results I look for hints as to the direction prices are moving. In other words I review OEM and Service Center data and try to see if I can find a trend. Hot rolled out of the service centers, were leaning toward the high end of our range. We found 23.5 percent of the service centers reporting HRC spot prices as being over $660 per ton. On the manufacturing side we found the bulk of the numbers at the lower end of the range with the biggest group (36 percent) reporting their spot HRC numbers at $620 per ton. There were more data points for the service center group but we need to be cautious when reporting the numbers over the next few weeks.

We completed our mid-March flat rolled steel market analysis earlier today. We received the largest number of responses for any one survey so far this year. Of those responding this week 44 percent were service centers, 39 percent manufacturing companies, 7 percent trading companies, 5 percent steel mills, 3 percent toll processors and 2 percent suppliers to the industry (like a paint or chemical company). We will have more details in Sunday evening’s issue of SMU about the responses we received. Our Premium level members will be able to access the Power Point presentation of the survey tomorrow afternoon on the SMU website.