Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
August 7, 2020
Last week we conducted one of our flat rolled and plate steel market trends analyses. Some of the information gathered was shared in Thursday’s and again in tonight’s issue (see above). However, we share in our newsletter only a small fraction of the information that is being collected. Our data providers and Premium members can access a PowerPoint presentation that puts a large portion of the data into historical perspective. That information is available online now.
We have an excellent economist speaking this Wednesday at 11 AM ET as part of the SMU Community Chat series of free webinars. Tim Gill, Chief Economist for the American Iron and Steel Institute, will join us to discuss how he is seeing the economy and the steel industry. You can register for the webinar by clicking here or going to www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/blog/smu-community-chat-webinars
14 Days to Go…
We are busy preparing for the 2020 SMU Virtual Steel Summit Conference. We have already begun the recording process for some of the “on-demand” presentations, and we are working on the lobby video, our introduction videos and with many of the speakers’ presentations. The program looks strong, and we are looking forward to rolling out our first virtual Steel Summit Conference.
When I last checked we had 24 nominees for this year’s SMU NexGen Leadership Award. Each of the nominees will receive a free pass to this year’s conference. Nominations are now closed. The judges and I will be reviewing the nominations over the next couple of weeks and we will announce the winner during the conference. A special thank you to the Steel Manufacturers Association for their support of this award.
We had 128 new registrations for the conference last week. Here are just some of the companies who registered: Batesville Casket Company, Larson Manufacturing Company, Conklin Metal Industries, Black Rock Metals, CARMEUSE Europe, Bank of America, PGT Trucking and Steel Dynamics who registered 15 of their executives. You can register by clicking here.
I want to recognize our sponsors without which our ticket prices would have been much higher than the $450 (no discounts) price ($350 for SMU/CRU member companies who register more than one person). If you would like more information about registration, please visit www.smusteelsummit.com or contact us at Events@SteelMarketUpdate.com
Our platinum sponsor is Red Bud Industries. Our Gold Sponsors are Mill Steel, Bank of America, Crowe, Big River Steel, Heidtman Steel, Reibus and Kenwal. Our Silver Sponsors are Nucor, CME Group, Steel Manufacturers Association, Fifth Third Bank, Felux and BMO. Our Bronze Sponsors are MidWest Materials, Alliance Steel, Ratner Steel Supply Company, Acero Prime, Magic Coil Products and Paragon Steel. We also want to recognize the following supporting companies: Metal Center News, Modern Metals, FF Journal, Fabricators and Manufacturers Association and Fitch Ratings.
This will be another busy week for the steel industry. We are still waiting to see if any of the EAF or conversion mills make a public move to take spot prices higher. SMU will be reaching out to a select group of steel buyers to get their opinions early this week, and we will be reporting on the results in Tuesday evening’s newsletter.
For those of you who are interested in learning more about upgrading, adding more employees or becoming a subscriber to the Steel Market Update newsletter, please contact Paige Mayhair at 724-720-1012. She can also be reached at Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com
I can be reached at John@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
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!