Analysis
June 26, 2025
Written by Kristen DiLandro
Steel market participants contend that buyers will remain in “wait-and-see” mode until market stability is restored.
In the past, conventional wisdom held that 50% tariffs on steel imported into the US, especially when coupled with a geopolitical conflict, were the perfect spark to ignite demand for domestically produced steel.
Construction has been an uneven market over the last year, but data centers have been a bright spot. Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) sat down with SMU Editor-in-Chief Michael Cowden last week for a Community Chat. In a far-ranging conversation, Simonson spoke on the current state of construction and wider issues in the economy. (For SMU Premium subscribers, you can watch replay of the entire interview here.)
Buyers in SMU’s latest Flat-Rolled Steel Survey increasingly expect hot-rolled (HR) coil prices to keep climbing into year-end and beyond. But competitive import offers have not yet eased concerns about tight availability: most surveyed manufacturers and service centers said foreign suppliers were quoting competitive prices, while many service centers said they were still buying imports to secure additional tons. As of Tuesday, Oct. 27, current spot prices for HR coil range from $1,280 per short ton (st) to $1,330/st, averaging $1,305/st, according to SMU’s market survey. Looking two months ahead, 41% of respondents to our Oct. 28 survey expected HR coil prices to be $1,300-1,349 per short ton (st) in two months, down from 47% in our survey two weeks earlier (Slide 32).
In this week's Steel Market Chatter, we explore manufacturing and service center buyers' comments about demand, prime scrap, the Iran War, and expectations for Section 232 tariffs in USMCA negotiations. We'll share a selection of the comments we received in each buyer's own words. Dive in with us into the results and findings of our latest Flat-Rolled Steel Survey.
After flying into a rain-soaked London seeking answers to questions on key issues in the aluminum space, we left the city with uncertainty remaining. As always, the speakers at LME Week 2026, which ran from Oct. 19-23, did a solid job evaluating the fundamentals for each of the metals they were covering. But most shied away from providing specific price forecasts. Who could blame them given the imponderables below?
SMU’s Current Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Index ticked up slightly this week, while Future Sentiment fell, according to our latest market survey. Every two weeks, SMU polls thousands of steel-industry executives, asking them to rate their companies’ chances of success today and also three to six months down the road. We use their responses to calculate our proprietary Current and Future Steel Buyers’ Sentiment Indices, measures tracked since 2008.