SMU Survey: Buyers say most mills still flexible on prices

A high percentage of the steel buyers we polled this week continue to respond that mills are open to price negotiation on new spot orders. Rates have been high for the majority of the year.

Every other week, SMU surveys hundreds of steel market executives, asking if domestic mills are flexible on new spot order pricing. This week, 88% of our buyers reported that mills would talk price to secure a new order (Figure 1). This is one of the higher rates recorded this year, just below the all-time high seen in late-October (93%). This time last year we saw much lower negotiation rates, between 29-50% in November and December.