Prices
December 9, 2021
HRC & BUS Futures: The Ghost of Christmas Past Takes You Back to 2014
Written by David Feldstein
Editor’s note: SMU Contributor David Feldstein is president of Rock Trading Advisors. Rock provides customers attached to the steel industry with commodity price risk management services and market intelligence. RTA is registered with the National Futures Association as a Commodity Trade Advisor. David has over 20 years of professional trading experience and has been active in the ferrous derivatives space since 2012.
This is a chart of the CME hot rolled coil futures curve as of July 16 and Nov. 16. What’s interesting about this chart is how the futures curve was in approximately the same place In mid-November as it was in mid-July despite steel market fundamentals being completely different. Whether it be lead times, mills’ willingness to negotiate, service center inventory levels, imports, etc. it’s night and day. Yet the two curves through the third quarter of next year weren’t that different.
