Analysis
January 14, 2026
HARDI: Slow grind higher fuels growing bullishness in galvanized mart
Written by Laura Miller
The galvanized steel market has kicked off the year with a firmer tone, marked by rising prices, lengthening lead times, and a noticeable shift in buyer sentiment.
Service centers and distributors on HARDI’s latest sheet metal and coil handling council call described a market that is not overheating but steadily tightening. This is in sharp contrast to the sluggish conditions that defined much of last year.
Prices have climbed roughly 15% since the group last met, with galvanized base prices now widely discussed in the $50-54/cwt ($1,000-1,080/short ton) range.
Participants on Tuesday’s call described a market that keeps inching higher week after week, creating a kind of disciplined rally rather than a frenzy.
SMU Editor-in-Chief Michael Cowden also pointed out the slow rise in SMU’s galvanized price index. At $1,060/st on average as of Jan. 6, it was up $20 from our last assessment and had risen $135/st since mid-to-late October. SMU held the price steady at $1,060/st on Tuesday, Jan. 13.
As one participant put it, “It’s not jumping like it did in the spring … but that steady grinding up week after week, it seems as if it’s going to continue.”
Lead times push out, mills hold firm
Call participants across multiple regions reported mills are quoting longer lead times and showing less willingness to negotiate, congruent with SMU’s recent market surveys. Some of the tightness stems from operational hiccups (one mill was said to be juggling internal issues or an outage), but most agreed order books are simply filling.
One participant questioned whether quoted lead times of 7 to 8 weeks for galvanized reflect true production schedules. But he acknowledged that “mills have definitely pushed out lead times” and that larger inquiries are becoming more common.
Imports no longer offer much relief. Finished steel imports have fallen to their weakest levels in more than a decade, tightening the supply picture just as domestic mills firm up pricing.
Indeed, US government import data shows galvanized imports have also fallen to multi-year lows. Comparing 2025 import levels with 2024, we see hot-dipped galvanized sheet, and strip imports of 1,737,620 short tons are down 42% and other metallic coated imports (mostly Galvalume) of 787,755 st are down 43% year over year.
With tariffs, anti-dumping, and countervailing duties in play, most buyers reported that offshore tons aren’t competitive.
Demand improves, but not evenly
HARDI members on the call characterized demand as broadly stronger than it was in mid-2025. They differed, however, on what’s driving the improvement.
Some see genuine momentum, with project activity ramping up as customers return from the holidays. One buyer highlighted a notable pick-up in the ag business.
Still, others attribute the lift to pull-forward buying, as rising prices move cautious buyers off the sidelines.
One HARDI member described demand as “fairly stable.” Another said it is “decent, not over the top.”
Someone else commented that customer inquiries are getting larger. “It’s shifted from the middle of the summer, where it was a coil here and a coil there,” he said, “to now it’s a truckload here and a truckload there.”
Balanced inventories, zinc rising
Inventory positions remain generally healthy, according to those on the call. Most service centers described their holdings as balanced to slightly above normal – enough to participate in a rally without being overexposed if the market tops out.
Cowden highlighted SMU’s November service center inventory report showing stock levels of 50.6 days of supply – the lowest they’ve been since June 2021. (Note: the December report will be distributed this week.)
Rising zinc prices and coating extras are adding another layer of upward pressure, with multiple call participants noting extras have increased across all mills. This supports the “steady grind” higher in galvanized pricing.
2025 vs. 2024
The call moderator asked the call participants to compare 2025 with 2024, even as he confessed both were “lousy years, historically speaking.”
Several participants said 2025 was a better year than 2024. Strategic buying was rewarded with two distinct price-rise windows, they said, noting HVAC businesses in particular saw stronger performance.
Market grinds higher
Despite the generally firmer tone, no one on the call predicted a runaway market. For now, galvanized sheet appears to be in a controlled upward trend. The call consensus pointed to a disciplined, incremental rally supported by tighter supply, solid lead times, and cautiously improving demand.
Regarding pricing’s grind higher, “I don’t see anything stopping it,” said one member. They noted data center construction and other structural steel-heavy projects could draw additional tons from the sheet market as the year progresses.
“If there’s a grind on the demand side through the spring and some discipline on some of the production, and a few hiccups,” commented one member, “maybe you get that grind that’s a little grind higher. That’s not a bad place to be.” But he added, “It’s not pulling out demand from our perspective.”
Looking 30 days out, 85% of call participants expect galvanized prices to rise by at least $2/cwt. And 60% said they’d increase by more than $2/cwt, 20% said they’d be up by more than $4/cwt, and 5% think more than $6/cwt. The remaining 15% believe prices will be flat (+/-$2/cwt).
Views on pricing become more mixed the further out we go, with 15% expecting prices to decrease by at least $2/cwt and another 5% expecting prices to fall by more than $6/cwt in the next six months. Almost a third (30%) think prices will be flat. Another 30% think prices will rise by more than $2/cwt, and still another 20% believe they’ll be up more than $6/cwt in six months.
