SMU survey: More buyers report mills willing to talk price

More than three-quarters of the steel buyers participating in our market survey this week reported that mills are negotiable on prices for new order. Negotiation rates have been in this range for the last six weeks, following the gradual decline across July and into early August.

Every other week, SMU polls hundreds of steel market executives asking if domestic mills are willing to negotiate lower spot pricing on new orders. As shown in Figure 1, 76% of all buyers we surveyed this week reported that mills were willing to budge on price. This is four percentage points higher than our negotiation rate two weeks prior, and within 1% of those in August. Compare this to early July when we saw a multi-year high rate of 92%.