Final Thoughts

June 14, 2017

As you can see by the number of articles in tonight’s newsletter, there is a LOT going on and we are working over-time trying to stay on top of everything. For that reason we have put off our MSCI articles until Sunday evening’s issue (we will actually publish them to the front of our website on Friday) for both the USA and Canada.

I am expecting more price increase announcements from the other sheet mills over the next couple of working days. We already warned that another increase was coming and I don’t think they will end here if the rumor mill is correct about what Wilbur Ross will recommend on Section 232 for President Trump. It is real important to stay focused on your suppliers, lead times as well as foreign suppliers and those vessels that may be on the water. Everything is up in the air and we just don’t know what is about to happen (same goes for politics – there is a lot going on).

When we planned our SMU Steel Summit Conference we knew that politics and “free and fair trade” were going to become big issues for those involved in the flat rolled steel industry (manufacturers, distributors, mills, trading companies and those associated with the industry). We booked our program sensing the importance of those topics and I think having Michael Smerconish of CNN & SiriusXM, Alan Beaulieu of ITR, Chris Kuehl of Armada Corporate Intelligence, trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz and former ITC chair Daniel Pearson, Philip Bell of the Steel Manufacturers Association and William Gaskin of the PMA and many more exceptional speakers will make our event one not to miss and not to forget.

Today was one of the busiest booking days for our conference as registrations are now very close to the 434 executives we had last year. We are still confident that we will exceed 500 attendees and we could get close to 600 if we have more days like today. Tell your steel friends where to find us: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel-Summit

My apologies to Uttam USA and our readers as we intended to publish our article about the “pause” in shipments by Uttam in Tuesday night’s issue as it was left off by mistake. It is in tonight’s issue and let me know if you have any questions.

A reminder that both Tim Triplett and I will be in New York City on June 26th and June 27th. If you would like to meet with us on Monday or Tuesday please contact me at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com

As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us at Steel Market Update.

John Packard, Publisher