Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
August 2, 2017
It has been another busy week here at Steel Market Update.
We are hearing from steel buyers that Nucor is considering raising flat rolled prices by $25 per ton within the next few working days. The increase would follow an increase in ferrous scrap prices for August delivery.
We have also heard that at least one Midwest mill is considering lowering galvanized spot base prices. At the same time, other buyers who do business with that mill are reporting no weakness.
I saw that California Steel Industries opened their September order book. I did not see a price announcement with their notification that the book was opening.
We just concluded our early August flat rolled steel market trends analysis and a piece of our findings are in tonight’s newsletter. We will make available a PowerPoint presentation on much of the results from this week’s analysis for our Premium level members tomorrow.
On Tuesday, I mentioned in my Final Thoughts that we had 10 slots left for the Fort Wayne, Ind., Steel 101 workshop. We had a surge of registrations yesterday, and we have three companies asking for spots that may/may not be there. We are building a wait list for the Oct. 4-5 workshop, and we are working on announcing the workshop that will follow Fort Wayne. I hope to have that information available for you in the next week or two.
A special thank you to the companies and individuals who wished Steel Market Update a happy 9th birthday.
Conference, conference, conference… For those of you who are already registered, we sent out a special newsletter this afternoon (Thursday), which contained information about the SMU Events App, registrations, sponsors and exhibitors, and an expanded view of our agenda. Please take the time to download our App (or if you have it from 2015 or 2016, switch to the 2017 program). The App is where you will find our list of attendees, speakers and speaker bio’s, sponsors and exhibitors, our agenda, social media links and access to our polling/surveys. We have asked a few very simple questions in our App already and will consolidate the answers and present them at the beginning of our program. On Tuesday, Aug. 29, a portion of the program will be a live interactive discussion with our audience as we gauge how they feel about the existing market conditions.
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
SMU has heard from some larger buyers who have stepped back into the market to buy at prices that, if not at a bottom, they assess to be close to one. Is it enough to stretch out lead times and send prices upward again? Or do we continue to scrape along the mid-$600s per short ton (st) as we have been doing for most of the last month?
Final thoughts
Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves had some insightful things to say today about the steel market and about a conference we suspect might be Steel Summit.
Final thoughts
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, when you add in some commentary from respected peers in the steel industry to those pictures, that may shoot you up to five thousand words, at least. In that spirit, we’ve added some snapshots from our market survey this week, along with some comments from market participants.
Final thoughts
I thought we’d have more clarity this week on Section 232, Mexico, and a potential carve-out for steel melted and poured in Brazil. As of right now, the only official comment I have is from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR).
Final thoughts
There are just 40 days left until the 2024 SMU Steel Summit gets underway on Aug. 26 at the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC) in Atlanta. And I’m pleased to announce that it's official now: More than 1,000 people have registered to at attend! Another big development: The desktop version of the networking app for the event has officially launched!