Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 3, 2017
This is my gut feeling, my opinion based on what I have been reading and watching in the news like everyone else. The world is trying to figure out if President Trump is going to start a trade war and the first bullets are made with flat rolled steel, pipe and long products. I am getting the feeling that what ultimately comes out of the Section 232 process will be less attractive to the U.S. steel mills than what they thought they were originally going to get. By the way, I have been hearing the mills want quotas and Trump is leaning toward an across the board tariff.
By the way, ferrous scrap prices are slow to develop. There have been some obsolete deals done at sideways numbers but, our sources are telling us no prime deals yet. The Detroit market which normally leads has not settled. We will have more details about scrap and scrap pricing in Sunday evenings issue of Steel Market Update.
Welcome back from the Holidays. I hope everyone in Canada and the United States had some quality time with their family and friends. From my perspective, these past few days were the last ones where I get to relax until August 31st – the day after the conclusion of our SMU Steel Summit Conference.
Our room blocks for the SMU Steel Summit Conference have 21 rooms as of 2 p.m. this afternoon. Details about hotel rooms are as follows:
Ray Culley did a check to see if we have any “open” rooms where we can offer our special room rate at one of the three hotels associated with the Georgia International Convention Center. We found that our room block at the Marriott Gateway Hotel has 4 rooms, which have just been released back into our room block. The room block at the Renaissance Gateway Hotel is sold out. We do, however, have 17 rooms available in our room block at the SpringHill Suites Gateway Hotel at $134 per night. You can book these rooms by calling 770-907-8880 (front desk) or by reaching out to Arielle Edwards-Jackson at that same phone number.
I did spot checks yesterday to see if rooms could be booked through the Marriott websites associated with each property. What I found is the SpringHill Suites Gateway Hotel had rooms available at $169-$195 per night. The Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway Hotel had rooms available at $289-$329 per night. The just opened Renaissance Gateway Hotel was offering rooms for $319-$349 per night.
We will not be able to block any more rooms at special rates at any of these three properties, which are located adjacent to the Georgia International Convention Center.
There are now 53 days before the beginning of our 7th SMU Steel Summit Conference and registrations are very close to 500 executives. We will update the companies associated with those registered early next week (it’s about 215 companies today). If you would like to register to attend the conference, you can do so on our website or by contacting one of our offices: Diana/Alison at 772-932-7538 or Brett at 706-216-2140. If you have any questions or would like to request an invoice, you can send the inquiry to: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
We have been contacting our speakers for this year’s event and I can tell you they are fired up about the industry, trade issues, politics, the economy, you name it. There is going to be plenty to discuss when we get to the end of August.
We still have a few exhibition spots left for this year’s conference. If your company is interested and would like to know more, please contact Ray.Culley@SteelMarketUpdate.com or 216-224-1190. I can tell you we priced the exhibition space so both small and large companies could afford to exhibit at our event.
As we have mentioned in the past, we sold out sponsorship space very early. I want to thank our sponsors: Pacesetter, Mill Steel, Bank of America, Flack Global Metals, Heidtman Steel, Nucor, Ryerson, Magic Coil Products, Alliance Steel, Kenwal, MidWest Materials, Majestic Steel and Red Bud Industries.
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
Steel equities and steel futures fell hard after news broke earlier this week that the US and Mexico might reach an agreement that would result in the 50% Section 232 tariff coming off Mexican steel. The sharp declines didn’t make much sense, especially if, as some reports indicate, Mexico might agree to a fixed quota. They didn't make sense even if steel flows between the US and Mexico remain unchanged.
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.
Final Thoughts
I want to draw your attention to SMU’s monthly scrap market survey. It’s a premium feature that complements our long-running steel market survey. We’ve been running our scrap survey since late January. And over just that short time, it’s become a valuable way not only for us to assess where scrap prices might go but also to quantify some of the “fuzzy” indicators - like sentiment and flows - that help to put the price in context.
Final Thoughts
I think there is an obvious case for sheet and plate prices going higher from here. That’s because, on a very basic level, the floor for flat-rolled steel prices, which is typically provided by imports, is now significantly higher than it was a week ago.
Final Thoughts
We're about to hit 50% Section 232 steel tariffs. What could happen?