Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 3, 2020
We don’t get to choose when we were born. We don’t choose what natural disasters, epidemiological emergencies, stock market crashes, tyrannical regimes, or wars our generations face. We only get to choose how we react. (Professor Wendy Beth Hyman of Oberlin College to her students on March 11, 2020).
Thank you for bearing with us over the past few days as we gave our employees some well-deserved time off and we did not publish on Thursday of last week and again on Sunday.
We are now back and working on all cylinders. If you have any questions for us, please feel free to ask away: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com
Ferrous scrap started trading today at down $20 on obsoletes and down $40 on prime grades (bundles and busheling). Ryan McKinley, scrap expert for CRU, will discuss what he is finding on buying activity and supply when he speaks during our SMU Community Chat webinar tomorrow at 11 AM ET. The webinar is free to anyone who would like to attend. This is a good way to expose your junior executives, sales, purchasing and those who continue to work outside the office to what is going on in the industry. You can register for this free webinar by clicking here or by going to our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/blog/smu-community-chat-webinars
We are conducting one of our flat rolled and plate steel market trends surveys this week. We will provide a sneak peek at a couple of items during tomorrow’s webinar. Otherwise, we will begin articles in the Thursday and Sunday night issues of SMU.
Our Service Center “Flash” report will go out to data providers tomorrow. If you are a service center selling prime flat rolled or plate products and you would like information about becoming a data provider, and what you receive for being a confidential data provider, please contact Estelle.Tran@crugroup.com or John@SteelMarketUpdate.com
We are now pushing 400 registered attendees for the 2020 SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference including those added today: 3GM Steel, Luminus Management, FCA US LLC, Lennox International*, Caterpillar Mexico, Mitsui Steel, North American Steel, Trinity Industries, and Steel Technologies* (* denotes more than one person is registered). You can join the hundreds of companies who will be attending (and networking) if you click here. You can also find more information on our website www.SteelMarketUpdate.com and click on the SMU Virtual Steel Summit link on the site. You can see a more complete list of the registered companies by clicking on this link. The list is updated every few days.
As always, your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, President & CEO
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!