Final Thoughts

Steel Market Update released the final detailed report on service center inventories and shipments to our data providers on Friday. It will be released to our Premium level members tomorrow. I mentioned in Thursday’s Final Thoughts that watching this data is one of the keys to figuring out when the market may get to a tipping point. Our data reviews incoming orders along with the number of days of supply (which we feel is a more accurate comparison than the number of months supply). If you would like to receive this information, you will need to either become a data provider (contact me or Estelle Tran at Estelle.Tran@crugroup.com to learn more about becoming a confidential data provider) or to become a Premium subscriber (contact Paige Mayhair at Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com for information about our Premium newsletter and services).

Slab prices into the U.S. market from Brazil are running around $770 per metric ton, USA port. Global prices are lower than what is being offered into the U.S. market. One of the steel mills told SMU, “Of course, with $60/cwt HRC, the slabs are hot….Having said that, the entire Q2 quota is already mostly sold…there won’t be many new bookings that could actually clear customs before July 1.”