Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
April 9, 2018
I’ve been asked my opinion as to which way steel prices will head from here. There seems to be a bit of a lull at the moment that one steel buyer attributed to the mills trying to stave off imports and not appear to be too greedy. Steel buyers are telling me that they will continue to buy foreign steel. To many buyers, it is a matter of price, to others it is principal. I continue to hold our Price Momentum Indicator at Higher as all the balls are in the mills’ court, or should I say the government’s court. We should get a better feel as to how President Trump and his DOC and USTR team are going to handle Canada, Mexico, Europe and other nations by the end of this month. We will also have a better feel as to how much “new” tonnage is being placed with foreign trading companies. At the moment, we are being told it is relatively minor tons.
I am doing some investigation as to what offers are out there on foreign hot rolled (hearing $43.00/cwt-$44.00/cwt USA port, which is not an attractive number if you think prices will drop later this quarter or early into third quarter), cold rolled (hearing Vietnam in the $47-$48 base price range) and coated steels (hearing Galvalume in the low $50’s including the 25 percent tariff).
I should have our service center number of months of supply index done tomorrow (Wednesday). Our “Flash” report had inventories dropping from 2.8 to 2.6 months at the end of March. Remember, this index will be available for Premium customers only once it is one year old (as of the end of June 2018).
I also want to remind everyone that we are taking registrations for our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop, which will be held in Memphis, Tenn., on June 5 & 6, 2018. Included will be the first time we will tour two steel mills during one workshop. We will tour the Nucor Hickman flat rolled mill and then tour the Nucor-Yamato beam and Castrip mills. I personally am looking forward to this workshop as I believe it will be special. The class is about one-third full at this time. Go to www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/events/steel101 for details, costs, hotel and registration.
I am in the office all this week. I can be reached at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com if you have any questions or if you would like to offer suggestions on how SMU can improve.
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!