Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
May 1, 2019
U.S. Steel announced a major $1.2 billion investment in new thin-slab casting technology, a new rolling mill and a co-gen power plant at its Mon Valley Works complex. This investment is not adding new steelmaking capacity to USS Mon Valley, which is rated at 2.9 million net tons. In a note to her clients, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Timna Tanners referenced her SteelMageddon ™ view, which calls for a wholesale destruction in steel prices about the time this USS investment is scheduled to come online. USS has their earnings conference call on Friday and SMU will be interested to hear what the company has to say and how they respond to analysts’ questions. We will have an article about what we learned on the conference call in Sunday evening’s issue of SMU. Note: Timna Tanners will be a speaker at the 2019 SMU Steel Summit Conference as we tackle the subject of new mill capacities and what the future will look like.
Speaking of our conference, the numbers have surged over the past 24 hours and we are well over 400 registrations for the 2019 SMU Steel Summit Conference. There are 115 days to go before the start of the conference. It is time to get the troops rounded up and register them for the Aug. 26-28, 2019, conference at the Georgia International Convention Center. Come join us!
Here are some of the new registrations we received just today. Those with an * mean more than one person registered from that company: Nucor*, Alliance Steel*, Gibraltar*, Ryerson*, Butech Bliss, Lapham-Hickey Steel, Material Sciences Corporation*, Reliance Steel & Aluminum*, Marubeni-Itochu Steel America*, UBS Securities*, ArcelorMittal Dofasco, Morton Buildings and Bull Moose Tube.
To learn more about the conference and to register: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/events/steel-summit
I want to welcome our newest member companies and also take a moment to thank existing companies who have been taking advantage of our more flexible membership plans. For details, reach out to Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012 or by email at Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, President & CEO
John Packard
Read more from John PackardLatest in Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
It’s another week of big headlines for the world writ large – an expanding war in the Middle East, another potentially catastrophic hurricane – and not much going on in the world of steel prices. “Call me Stevie Wonder, I see nothing.” That’s how one service center executive described the current sheet market. There seems to be almost a competition among some of our Community Chat guests and contributors to outdo each other in flowery ways to say, “
Final Thoughts
Surprise, surprise. Forget Halloween, the trend this October is all around the unexpected. Known as the “October Surprise,” you never know what is in store for you in the month before a US presidential election. Still, if we pull back the dial back date-wise a little bit, a familiar theme has been added to the mix: kick the can.
Final Thoughts
Another day, another massive gap between the news and market sentiment. On the news side, we’ve got war in the Middle East. The devastation facing western North Carolina coming into tragic focus. And the outcome of the presidential election remains a coin toss, according to current polling.
Final thoughts
There are markets where the headlines and the prices are both crazy. This does not appear to be one of them, at least not yet.
Final thoughts
Washington loomed large in our surveys this week. Two things actually: the upcoming presidential election and the trade case against imported coated products from 10 nations.