Analysis
October 23, 2025
Final Thoughts
Written by Michael Cowden
We’ve seen another week in which steel prices haven’t risen so much as the floor has firmed. The result: SMU’s hot-rolled coil price ticked a little above $800 per short ton (st) on average. That’s after dropping into the $700s for most of September and into early October.
What comes next depends on who you talk to and what data points they point to. We’ve all heard the narrative by now: Prices should go up on limited imports, lower inventories, and less discounting among US mills. SMU has written about that at length, and I’m not going to retread it here.
