Nucor weekly HR price not intended to compete with indices

Nucor said its new weekly hot-rolled coil spot price is not meant as a substitute for any current price indices.

“Nucor’s intent is NOT to create or replace any of the indices available,” a spokeswoman told SMU in a statement on Monday (emphasis theirs).

She said the company’s aim “is to provide a real-time, relevant, and transparent price to our customers that enables them to reduce their reliance on speculation and risk.”

“We will support this by managing spot lead times to a 3-5 week window,” she said.

Further, she noted that the weekly price “is forward-looking and not directly based on transactions that occurred during the week(s) prior.”

“It doesn’t mean we won’t use information gathered from the week before to help determine our Monday CSP (consumer spot price) price, but that is not the driving influence,” she added.

Other “quantitative and qualitative data sources” will be used, she said. These include inventory levels, import activity, and underlying demand drivers.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker released its first spot price of $830 per short ton earlier today. The move to CSPs was first announced last week.

Ethan Bernard

Ethan Bernard is managing editor for Steel Market Update. He previously worked for American Metal Market as a copy editor in the New York office for two years, starting in 2008. Later, he copy edited AMM’s monthly magazine on a freelance basis from 2015 until 2017. With experience in financial copywriting and textbook publishing, he holds a BA in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. He can be reached at ethan@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7871.