This week the Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. is showing hot rolled coil price momentum continuing its downward trend for the 36th week in a row. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price […]
For those asking about Steel 101, we will close registration to our Chicago (Merrillville, Indiana) workshop at the end of this coming week. Details on the workshop can be found on our website or you are welcome to contact us: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com. With some luck we will hopefully have registration up and running for our 5th […]
The rash of price increase announcements threw one of the articles I have been working on to the back burner for today. However, the flame will be lit once again tomorrow. The article is about foreign steel imports. In particular, I have been talking to a number of trading companies about their order books, spread […]
The following article is a continuation of our Steel Buyers Basics series written by Mario Briccetti. Mario is Principal of Briccetti & Associates, a Supply Chain consulting firm, and can be reached at Mario@mbriccetti.com I’ve been getting ready for my presentation in SMU’s May Steel 101 workshop and as part of that presentation updating the […]
This will be another interesting week for the steel industry. We have US Steel and AK Steel announcing their earnings and conducting conference calls with analysts. Will any of the mills make a move to push prices prior to one of these conference calls (mills have done it in the past)? There continues to be […]
As we discussed at the beginning of the month April, Steel Market Update (SMU) will present our Future Steel Buyers Sentiment Index at the beginning of our Sentiment articles. Future Sentiment provides a better look at what steel buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are thinking regarding their company’s ability to be successful three […]
Domestic mill lead times appear to have found bottom and are stabilizing at these lower than normal rates, based on the results of the latest Steel Market Update flat rolled steel market analysis (survey). Benchmark hot rolled lead times managed to eek above 3.0 weeks for the first time in a number of months (late […]
The willingness of the steel mills to negotiate flat rolled steel prices with end users and service center customers remains high based on the results from the Steel Market Update flat rolled steel survey. The issue is weak order books (see lead time article in today’s issue) and the domestic steel mills are looking for […]
New home sales fell 11.4 percent in March for the biggest decline since July 2013. The seasonally adjusted annual rate was 481,000 below the forecast of 515,000. Analysts, however, say the drop is not as worrisome as it looks, coming off a strong revised February sales pace of 543,000 from a previously reported 539,000. Home […]
This week the Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. is showing hot rolled coil price momentum continuing its downward trend for the 35th week in a row. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price […]
We appear much closer to the crossroads than I think many of you realize. Reliance, Nucor and Steel Dynamics spoke about the changes coming in their own way during their earnings conference calls. Reliance prodded the mills to raise prices – now. SDI spoke about their attorneys waiting for the right time before they can […]
March vehicle sales brought welcome new by bouncing back vigorously to 17.15 million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, up from 16.23 million units in February. The March 2015 sales pace was 4 percent higher than the March 2014 pace. Cars had the greatest growth from 7.2 million units in February to 7.7 in […]
We have been receiving a number of inquiries regarding changing Executive level memberships and upgrading them to Premium level. This is something we can do for any company or individual at any point in time during the year. It does not have to wait until your membership is up for renewal. If you want to […]
According to Baker Hughes data from April 17th, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 954 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. The last time the active U.S. count was this low was back on July 31, 2009 at 948 rigs. This week’s total rig count is down 34 rigs […]
The 2015 Ford F-150 pickup passed its crash test safety rating with flying colors. The aluminum bodied pickup received a five out of five star rating—one star higher than its traditional steel model—from the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration. The Ford achievement is critical to ease consumer minds’ on the safety of aluminum. However, the […]
As they go through the sales process many sales people find that they reach a point with a particular buyer where they can go no further. They have hit the “wall” which seems to be impenetrable and all efforts to consummate a sale are thwarted. How do you get around the wall and put yourself […]
We will begin our next flat rolled steel market analysis (survey for those of you new to SMU) on Monday morning. Invitations will be sent our by SurveyMonkey.com around 8 AM ET on Monday. If you receive an invitation please click on the link or button contained in the message to access your questionnaire. Registrations […]
Starts in March rose by 14,000 to 926,000 after the revised decline of 164,000 in February. This data is seasonally adjusted by the Census department and the monthly numbers are annualized. The three month moving average, (3MMA) declined from 1,020,000 in February to 969,000 in March (Figure 1). The projection to 1.6 million in 2018 […]
This week the Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. is showing hot rolled coil price momentum continuing its downward trend for the 33rd week in a row. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price […]
SMU Service Center Apparent Excess The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) released U.S. steel distributor shipments and inventories earlier today. We have a separate article which goes into detail in both flat and long products in this newsletter. This article focuses on our flat rolled steel Service Center Inventory Apparent Excess/Deficit forecast for the month […]
As the publisher of Steel Market Update I get a lot of questions on a daily basis from readers and those who come across our website. Usually its about a piece of data or something having to do with one of our workshops. I got a question yesterday from someone who wanted to know what […]
A little more than two weeks have passed since Steel Market Update adjusted our forward looking Price Momentum Indicator from “Lower” to “Neutral.” Looking back on the historical trend for flat rolled steel Price Momentum you have to go back a year before you would see our Price Momentum Indicator pointing toward “Higher” flat rolled […]
For those of you who are interested the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) shipment and inventory data is scheduled to be released tomorrow (Wednesday). We will have a full report for our Executive members in Thursday’s issue and our Apparent Excess and Price Forecast and another more detailed report for our Premium level members later […]
This past week Steel Market Update publisher, John Packard, spoke to the financial community about the flat rolled steel industry. Most of the questions received during the Cowen & Company conference call were associated with demand for steel products. Since SMU just concluded our early April flat rolled steel market analysis (survey) late last week, […]
According to Baker Hughes data from April 2nd, 2015, the U.S rig count for the week was 988 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. The last time the active U.S. count was this low was back in late-August 2009 at 968 rigs. This week’s total rig count is down 40 rigs when […]
Below is the latest data issued by the the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) regarding residential and commercial heating and cooling equipment shipments through February 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 February 2015 increased 5.4 percent, […]
During my conference call with Cowen & Company and their customers last week I mentioned that I thought we could see a domestic mill price increase by the middle of May. My reasoning is inventories should begin to drop at the service center level and many of the end users want to tie up steel […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has two Steel Buyers Sentiment Indices, current and future. We normally concentrate our initial comments on the current index, how buyers and sellers of steel feel about business conditions and their company’s ability to be successful in the current market. However, today and going forward, we will begin focusing on how […]
This week Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our early April flat rolled steel market survey. Based on the results of our inquiries we learned that domestic mill lead times continue to be quite short and well below the lead times seen one year ago. However, when looking at last year’s lead times, we must remember […]
According to our survey respondents not much has changed when it comes to how willing steel mills are to negotiate hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steel pricing. Lead times continue to remain short and order books weak. This has created a situation whereby steel mills have to be competitively priced in order to […]