Final Thoughts

Yes, we’ve heard—as I’m sure that some of you have—that a certain domestic mill had more December tons available than expected. And while those tons might have transacted at lower numbers, it wasn’t enough to bring our overall sheet price averages down.

In fact, all of our sheet and plate prices inched higher again this week. And HR saw its seventh consecutive week of gains following a rally that got underway at the start of Q4.

Broadly speaking, 44% of respondents said US mills were willing to discount HR prices. And only 36% of respondents said domestic producers were willing to offer lower CR prices. Which isn’t to say that no deals are available. But we haven’t seen mills this willing to hold the line on prices since late March/early April—before President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs cast a long shadow of uncertainty over the market.

As best as we can tell, that uncertainty hasn’t lifted. Businesses have just learned to live with it. That might explain why sentiment is trending up as well. (We will have the full details on the latest sentiment readings on the SMU website on Wednesday.)

Basically, the market has figured out how to absorb shocks and keep going. We think that explains why some of you are telling us that you anticipate better demand in Q1. That as well as optimism, in some corners, around data centers and oil and gas pipelines.

One industry sourced summed it up like this: “I haven’t seen demand increase. I also haven’t seen in it decrease—and people are still buying.”

The result: Lead times continue to extend as well. SMU’s HR lead time, for example, stands at 5.70 weeks on average, up a week from 4.71 weeks a month ago. What’s more, we haven’t seen HR lead times this close to six weeks since early March—in the buying frenzy that preceded Trump imposing more stringent Section 232 tariffs on imported steel.

Speaking of imports, we have government data on them again now that the shutdown is over. And we can officially say imports remain at historically low levels—the lowest since December 2020! Service center inventories, meanwhile, continue to tick lower. And the expectation continues to be December scrap prices will be at worst sideways.

Speaking of raw materials, it’s worth giving Steve Miller’s latest pig iron market report a close read. With Russia long out of the US market and only limited tonnage available from Ukraine, Brazil has for several years now been the go-to source for US EAF mills—even if it means paying a 10% tariff. But now Europe is also unable to buy Russia pig iron because the EU’s quota on it will close in 2026.

That could leave the US and Europe competing on price for access to Brazilian pig iron. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see domestic producers might have more incentive to try to push along higher costs if Europe buying pig iron from Brazil becomes a trend.

Sure, it might be hard to wrap your head around a steel price recovery that’s occurring against the backdrop of declines in metals more broadly speaking and amid some very mixed macro-economic data. (Edward Meir, who is contributing to Aluminum Market Update, has a good synopsis of the broader markets here.)

But that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. Heck, just look at plate, where we’ve had a flurry of pre-Thanksgiving price hikes. It’ll be interesting to see what happens in sheet next week.

Happy Thanksgiving!

By the way, some of our die-hard fans might note that we don’t usually release survey data until Thursday. Well, this week we burned some midnight oil to get fresh numbers to you ahead of Thanksgiving.

We’ve highlighted some of our key data—lead times and mill negotiation rates, for example—in this issue. We’ll have our full survey results, including sentiment figures, out to our premium subscribers on Wednesday.

We’re sure you can’t wait to share them with the entire family on turkey day. (Hey, it beats talking about politics.)

In the meantime, we thank all of you for your continued support. And we wish all of you a very happy Thanksgiving!