Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
July 31, 2020
As if a pandemic wasn’t enough, now I have to muddle through a tropical storm (it was a hurricane but lost some of its punch overnight on Saturday). Fortunately, Florida residents consider tropical storms as nothing more than a nuisance. I have my fingers crossed that we don’t pick up a hurricane until after our conference is over….
Congratulations to Mark Bush who was named the CEO for JSW USA.
It is going to be a busy week with a new flat rolled and plate steel market trends survey beginning at 8 a.m. on Monday morning. Our service center data providers begin providing inventory and shipment data Monday as well. We should have a better feel for any shifts in momentum by the end of this week, although my gut feel is we are close to a bottom, if not at the bottom on hot rolled prices (with the low end being in the very low $400’s per ton).
We have not yet named a speaker for this Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat Webinar. We should have one confirmed in the morning, and we will advise as soon as we do.
Registrations are breaking through 600 executives and counting for the 2020 SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference. If you register by Aug. 5 you will be eligible to receive one of our welcome packages. Yes, we are sending a welcome box from SMU as well as a number of our gold and platinum sponsors. You can register by clicking here or going to www.smusteelsummit.com
Here are some of the companies who registered for the 2020 SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference late last week: Komatsu Mining Corp, Colakoglu Metalurji A.S., Wayne Brothers, Inc., Argus Media, UBS Securities*, NB Handy, Flack Global Metals*, Stelco, Griffin Trade Group, Metal One America, Steel & Pipe Supply, Jade Metals Corp, Viking Materials Inc., High Steel Service, Apex Tool Group, EXLTUBE*, ArcelorMttal Dofasco* (those with an * means more than one person registered). You can join them by clicking here or going to www.smusteelsummit.com
This will be another hectic week for me as we continue to prepare for our first virtual steel conference. If you are wondering about our platform, you can view the recording made last week during our SMU Community Chat when we unveiled the platform and explained how it will work. You can view the recording by clicking here or going to: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/blog/smu-community-chat-webinars
If you want to renew, upgrade or join Steel Market Update, please contact Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012 or by email: 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
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Final thoughts
Our spot price is little changed this week after moving sharply lower last week on the heels of Nucor’s unexpected price cut. Here’s one thought on that trend: Nucor's weekly HR price (aka, its “Consumer Spot Price” or CSP) has to date functioned almost more like a monthly price.
Final thoughts
What's the tea in the steel industry this week? Here's the latest SMU gossip column! Just kidding... kind of. Yes, some of the comments we receive in our weekly flat-rolled market steel buyers' survey are honestly too much to put into print. Some make us laugh. Some make us cringe. Some are cryptic. Most are serious. We appreciate them all. Below are some highlights from our survey results this week. Some of the comments that we can share with you are also included, in italics, in the buyers' own words, with minimal editing on our part.
Final thoughts
Last week we wrote about a brief lull in price movement, labeling it a period of wait and see. It did, in fact, turn out to be pretty brief. This week... things are little bit different. Perhaps right now we are more in a period of "hope and pray" or "Here we go, hold on to your hats."
Final thoughts
Unless you've been under a rock, you know by know that Nucor's published HR price for this week is $760 per short ton, down $65/st from the company’s $825/st a week ago. I could use more colorful words. But I think it’s safe to say that most of the market was not expecting this. For starters, US sheet mills never announce price decreases. (OK, not never. It has come to my attention that Severstal North America rescinded a price increase back on Feb. 14, 2012. And it caused quite the ruckus.)
Final thoughts
Is it just me, or does it seem like the summer doldrums might have arrived a little early? I could be wrong there. It’s possible we could see a jump in prices should buyers need to step back into the market to restock. I’ll be curious to see what service center inventories are when we update those figures on May 15. In the meantime, just about everyone we survey thinks HR prices have peaked or soon will. (See slide 17 in the April 26 survey.) Lead times have flattened out. And some of you tell me that you’re starting to see signs of them pulling back. (We’ll know more when we update our lead time data on Thursday.)