The UAW and FCA have reached a new tentative agreement, avoiding a strike deadline by minutes. The UAW notified members at 11:41 pm Wednesday evening, saying “significant gains” were secured in the new agreement. “We heard from our members, and went back to FCA to strengthen their contract,” said UAW President Dennis Williams. “We’ve reached […]
Flat rolled steel mill lead times remain historically short as the domestic mills struggle to keep their mills full. Based on the results from this week’s flat rolled steel market analysis (survey) we are seeing lead times at least one week shorter than this time last year on all products with the exception of Galvalume. […]
With the short lead times (referenced in another article in tonight’s issue) the mills have little choice but to negotiate pricing with their customers as every order counts. Each of the flat rolled products followed by Steel Market Update are being reported, almost unanimously, that the mills are working with their customers. The graphic below […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the eighth consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
The first rule of business travel is don’t book the last flight of the day to your end destination – especially when you have a three hour ride to the airport and, guess what, the last 20 miles are in Chicago rush hour traffic… My thanks to Mario Briccetti (Steel 101 instructor) who imitated another […]
The UAW issued a strike notice today to Fiat Chrysler. The notice from UAW Chrysler VP and Director Norwood Jewell gave a deadline of 11:59 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 7, for cancellation of the current hour-by-hour contract extension. “FCA US confirms that it has received strike notification from the UAW,” said Fiat Chrysler in a statement […]
I, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and a number of steel people are all in Davenport, Iowa enjoying the warmer than normal weather and great conditions to do a mill tour which is exactly what we did this afternoon (without Hillary and Jeb). I want to thank everyone at SSAB for their hospitality and for doing […]
UAW negotiations with the Big Three automakers are on hold while the bargaining committee figures out its next move. The union announced on Thursday that the tentative agreement between the UAW and Fiat Chrysler was voted down by a 65 percent majority of the 40,000 workers at FCA. Although no directives have been issued, local […]
I recently had dinner with the owner of a Midwest based flat rolled steel service center. During the course of the conversation the subject of steel sales and, specifically, the development of new sales leads came up. I am sure this is a topic that many service center managers reflect upon on an almost daily […]
UAW workers will soon be voting on a new labor contract at John Deere factories. After a month of negotiations, a tentative agreement was announced on Oct. 1 following the expiration of the previous agreement at midnight on Sept. 30. The new agreement will cover John Deere workers at 12 factories in Iowa, Illinois and […]
One of the reasons SMU decided to go with an App for our Steel Summit Conference this year was the belief that the App was something that could be used prior to the conference as well as after the conference. For example, earlier today I was working on developing scrap information in relationship to iron […]
UAW members rejected the tentative agreement with Fiat Chrysler in what is being called a vote of emotion over logic. UAW President Dennis Williams tried to put a positive spin on the rejection of the agreement, saying in a statement, “What I love about our organization most of all is that no matter what we […]
U.S. automotive sale results were released today under the shadow of a failed UAW tentative agreement with Fiat Chrysler. However, auto manufacturers kept their successful sales run going again in September. The Detroit Big Three all enjoyed double digit increases in sales last month. Ford gained 23 percent, General Motors 12 percent, and FCA 14 […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the eighth consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
I spent part of my day today speaking to buyers who are known to buy foreign steel either due to logistics reasons (too far away from a producing mill) or who prefer to have options for pricing reasons. What I found out is a number of countries involved in the trade suits continue to quote […]
Higher prices and tight inventory on existing homes are slowing home sales according to two reports released this week. Pending home sales for August, released by The National Association of Realtors, reports pending home sales retreated in August. The Pending Home Sales Index, based on contract signings, dropped 1.4 percent to 109.4 in August, compared […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
UAW voting is taking place on the tentative agreement between Fiat Chrysler and the union but early signs show workers are dissatisfied with the terms of the contract. The agreement must be ratified by a majority vote by 40,000 UAW members at 37 FCA sites. As of Friday, the majority of votes cast at UAW […]
Over the course of this past week Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our flat rolled steel market analysis. Part of that analysis was focused on the domestic steel mill lead times for new orders placed last week for future delivery. We follow lead times as they are one of the early key indicators as to […]
According to the respondents to our recent flat rolled steel questionnaire concluded this past week, U.S. and Canadian steel mills continue to entertain adjusting (or negotiating) prices on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels. The percentage of respondents who reported hot rolled pricing as negotiable dropped from 97 percent to 78 percent. Cold […]
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 24, 2015 – The Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI), a business unit of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), has launched a new website that focuses on using steel for building construction. The new site, located at www.buildusingsteel.org, provides information for engineers, architects, owners, building contractors, code officials and other construction […]
Twice per month, Steel Market Update conducts a flat rolled steel market analysis which is done in the form of a survey. The survey is done through Survey Monkey online and then evaluated by SMU. Once we have crunched the numbers they are put into spread sheets and then a good portion of the data […]
We will be in Iowa next week for one of our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshops. We are looking forward to working with SSAB again, as we did a workshop in Mobile, Alabama and toured their Alabama facility. This is our first trip to Iowa. We are working on ironing […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been dropping lately and Steel Market Update (SMU) can no longer ignore the direction of market prices at this time. We are, therefore, adjusting our Price Momentum Indicator to Lower from Neutral, meaning that our expectation is for prices to move lower over the next 30 days. There are a […]
Flat rolled steel buyers and sellers are less enthusiastic about their company’s ability to be successful in both the current and future (three to six months into the future) market conditions. The SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index (Current) is being reported as +47, down 6 points over one month ago and well below the +64 […]
Below is the latest release issued by the the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) regarding residential and commercial heating and cooling equipment shipments through July 2015. You may read the press release on their website here. Residential Storage Water Heaters U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters for July 2015 increased 3.5 percent, […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States was negative (indicating lower prices) for the seventh consecutive week. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average spot price […]
The following press release came out late this afternoon and we caught it early this evening. The announcement is about the hot rolled trade cases and whether the US International Trade Commission (ITC) found enough evidence to determine that the probability exists that the U.S. steel industry was “materially damaged” by hot rolled exports from […]
“Steel will win out,” said Larry Kavanagh, president of the Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI) when asked about the use of aluminum in the automotive industry. SMU talked with Kavanagh about Ford’s announcement that it will increase the use of aluminum in the F-150, and potentially other vehicles, using Alcoa’s Micromill technology. The new Micromill […]
The UAW has released the details of the proposed 4-year agreement with Fiat Chrysler. Employee reaction to the tentative agreement was mixed at local unions. There were tough questions and criticisms to respond to at the informational meetings held by the leaders of the bargaining committee. UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell, who was instrumental in […]