Final Thoughts
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Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
May 14, 2018
I am in Miami (South Beach) for a Bank of America Merrill Lynch conference. A little different than I am used to, but I guess the insights that Lewis Leibowitz and I bring on the market may help investors. I will be back in my office sometime late on Wednesday afternoon.
The questions that Lewis and I were getting this afternoon at a reception were about getting a “final” answer to the Section 232 tariffs/exclusions, et al. With the June 1 deadline approaching, I think the investors are hoping the chaos and uncertainty will go away. I don’t think Lewis or I are of that opinion. There will be more chaos to come.
We will have a full report on import licenses on Thursday. I will give you a heads up. The first two weeks’ rate has been much less than what we saw last month. Details coming soon.
I want to welcome our newest members to Steel Market Update. I want to invite you to interact with me, which you can do by sending emails to John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. Your comments and suggestions about Steel Market Update are greatly appreciated.
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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!