Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
March 16, 2018
SMU will begin our next flat rolled and plate steel market trends analysis beginning at 8 AM ET tomorrow morning (Monday). Please check your inbox (or SPAM filter) for our invitation to participate in the mid-March process. If you would like to be included in this or future surveys, please send an email to info@SteelMarketUpdate.com.
I will be in the office all this week. Next week, I will be traveling to Chicago as we are hosting one of our sold-out Steel 101 workshops in conjunction with NLMK Portage minimill.
Our next Steel 101 workshop will be on June 5 & 6, 2018, in Memphis, Tenn., and we will be touring two Nucor steel mills: Hickman and Nucor-Yamato. I anticipate we’ll have the registration and details set up on our website early this week. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please send them to info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. If you would like to register, contact Brett Linton at 706-216-2140.
We will have more details about how trading companies and end users are working toward getting exclusions to the Section 232 tariffs, which are scheduled to go into effect on March 23. If you would like to ask questions or need a clarification, please send me an email: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com and I will do my best to get you a prompt response. Lewis Leibowitz has advised me he will be working through the procedures once they are published in the Federal Register (which should happen on Monday).
On top of all of this, there are AD/CVD duties that have been challenged on CORE, and the results are expected in April. We will be working on this, as well.
Plus, union contracts are up in September…
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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I’m not sure how many different ways I can write that it’s been a quiet market ahead of Independence Day. There are variations on that theme. I’ve heard everything from the ominous “eerily quiet” to "getting better" and even the occasional “blissfully unaware” (because I’m enjoying my vacation).
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Maybe some of this uncertainty will get ironed out ahead of Liberation Day tariffs resetting higher rates on July 9. But if I had to place a wager, it would be on more drama and last-minute brinksmanship - whether it comes to the Liberation Day tariffs or the various Section 232s that are in the works.
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