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Distributor Inventories Drop, According to “SMU Flash Report”

Written by John Packard

February 6, 2018

Flat rolled steel inventories being held on service center floors dropped as of the end of January, according to the Steel Market Update (SMU) Flash Report.

SMU reached out to the companies registered to participate in our inventory analysis today to produce our initial “Flash Report.” This report provides early guidance on changes in inventory levels based on at least 50 percent of the companies responding. We will produce our full report prior to the 14th of the month. This information will be provided first to the service centers who provide data and then to our Premium level members. We are sharing this report with our Executive level members to give them exposure to one of the products that is available every month to our Premium clients.

Based on approximately 50 percent of the distributors reporting as of 5 p.m. this afternoon, the number of months of supply dropped to 2.7 months from the 3.0 months of supply reported as of the end of December.

By the numbers:

The percentage of companies reporting higher inventories = 33 percent.

The percentage of companies reporting lower inventories = 42 percent.

The percentage of companies reporting stable inventories = 25 percent.

What we found in our initial analysis of the numbers is those companies reporting lower inventories saw significant movement with a number of them reporting a decline of more than one-half to as much as one full month of inventory compared with the end of December.

We will provide more details once our full report comes out by no later than early next week (prior to any MSCI release).

John Packard

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