SMU Price Ranges & Indices: Another Down Week for Flat Rolled

Flat rolled spot base prices continued to drop over the past week. There are mixed emotions from steel buyers with some believing the weakness being seen is an “overreaction” to a “perceived” weakness in the steel mill order books. Comments were made to Steel Market Update during the data gathering process that weakness is mill specific using Nucor’s galvanized as an example where their book is strong, perhaps being led by some of their downstream businesses. At the same time, we are hearing hot rolled low end prices are from EAF mills and that the integrated mills tend to be at the upper end of the range.

Nonetheless, we picked up lower numbers on all but plate products. Plate continues to be strong as plate mills’ books are full and there is very limited spot tonnage available. We heard from a number of smaller plate service centers who told us there were no spot tons available for them.