I had a whirlwind weekend having traveled to Cleveland to see family and to attend MidWest Materials’ 65th anniversary. Brian Robbins and his crew did a great job paying homage to their past and current employees. The company is much different today than it was in 1952 when it started. I have a feeling it […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been working with 40 flat rolled steel service centers as we develop a new index regarding flat rolled steel inventories being held at steel distributors in the United States. Based on the data collected through this afternoon, we are finding a modest increase in the inventories being held by the […]
The fourth round of NAFTA talks is under way in Washington with some negotiators fearing the demise of the 20-year-old agreement. “There are several poison pill proposals still on the table that could doom the entire deal,” said Tom Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a speech in Mexico City on Tuesday. […]
We received a number of responses to our articles on ethics. We didn’t want to beat a dead horse by producing another article this evening, even though there is plenty to write about. For those of you who have not noticed, Kobe Steel in Japan has admitted falsifying data on materials placed in autos, trains […]
Responses to several subjects in last week’s Steel Market Update flat rolled steel market trends questionnaire shared a common thread. Comments on demand, pricing, purchases of foreign steel and inventory levels all tended to reflect a bearish attitude among many flat rolled and steel plate service center executives. · On the subject of steel demand, […]
The Global Forum on excess steel capacity is getting closer to releasing its report. The Forum was convened after the G20 meetings in Paris and has outlined six key principles in a draft report that is circulating among 33 participating countries. Comments are due by Oct. 10 with a possible final draft delivered to G20 ministers on […]
I have been working on two major projects today: flat rolled and plate pricing for our steel index and flat rolled steel service center inventories as of the end of September. I finished the first project on pricing, which showed mixed results with some price erosion on a couple of items and stable prices on […]
Over the course of the first four days of this past week (the week of Oct. 2, 2017), Steel Market Update conducted our early October flat rolled steel market trends analysis. One of the areas we track is how steel service centers are handling spot prices on flat rolled steel being sold to their customers. […]
The following article was written by trade attorney Lewis E. Leibowitz regarding the historical precedent for exclusion of products from any Section 232 decision that impacts imports of foreign steel. Leibowitz is well known to Steel Market Update, having spoken on trade issues at a number of SMU Steel Summit Conferences, and he has provided […]
Steel buyers and sellers appear evenly split on whether the renegotiation of NAFTA will benefit their companies. Responses to Steel Market Update’s market trends questionnaire, emailed to several hundred steel executives earlier this week, suggests that most companies don’t really know if the new NAFTA being pursued by the Trump administration will be good for […]
Increased imports of foreign-made washing machines into the U.S. are causing serious injury to the domestic industry, said the U.S. International Trade Commission in an Oct. 5 determination. Under Section 202 of the Trade Act of 1974, the commission voted 4-0 in the global safeguard investigation that was prompted by a petition from Whirlpool Corp. […]
NAFTA negotiations are about to get even more contentious with a proposal by the Trump administration to increase U.S. domestic content in autos to 50 percent. The administration also proposes increasing the NAFTA regional content requirement to 85 percent from the current 62.5 percent, said sources to Inside U.S. Trade. The administration is facing tough […]
This evening I received a note from a reliable source advising me that AM/NS Calvert had been hit by a tornado associated with Hurricane Nate on Saturday. The information provided noted there was damage to the administration building, a storage building and some power lines on the property. There was no mention of any injuries. […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to be optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment as well as three to six months into the future. We are seeing signs of what has become a normal mild tapering of enthusiasm as we enter the fourth quarter of the […]
Flat rolled steel lead times have shortened up slightly since mid-September, according to the service centers and manufacturers who responded to Steel Market Update’s market trends questionnaire this week. Lead time, which is the amount of time it takes for the domestic steel mills to produce a new order from the time the order was […]
Steel mills are even more open to price discussions than they were a couple weeks ago, which may be a reflection of weakening prices, say steel buyers who replied to Steel Market Update’s latest flat rolled market trends questionnaire. More than 100 executives responded to this week’s questionnaire. Steel buyers’ perceptions of their suppliers’ attitudes […]
U.S. Steel’s Section 337 petition took another blow this week when Administrative Law Judge Dee Lord terminated the trans-shipment claim that accused China of misrepresenting country of origin on steel imports. Lord had dismissed the claim in January, citing lack of evidence by U.S. Steel to support its allegations. The claim was remanded to Lord […]
The American Institute for International Steel, representing 120 companies supporting 1.2 million jobs in the steel-using sectors and 84,000 direct and indirect jobs in the marine transportation system, wrote to the president this week requesting termination of the Section 232 investigation on steel imports. AIIS said they appreciate that a significant part of the rationale […]
It’s 10 PM and I am on a flight back to Florida having spent the last three days in Fort Wayne, Ind. We hosted one of the largest Steel 101 workshops in our history and the workshop went well. We spent Wednesday going over the classroom materials and then that evening our workshop was hosted […]
I am in Fort Wayne, Ind., along with members of my Steel 101 team, John Eckstein, Mario Briccetti, Steve Murphy, Steve Painter, Sandy Williams, as well as Tim Triplett who will be attending his first Steel 101 workshop. Over the next two days, we will be working with a large class of attendees and discussing […]
The third round of NAFTA discussions ended Wednesday with consensus on small and medium enterprises. The chapter on small and medium-size enterprises will enhance “their ability to participate in and benefit from the opportunities created by this agreement, including through cooperative activities, information sharing, and the establishment of a NAFTA Trilateral SME Dialogue, involving the […]
Steel market indicators look good in the September data. Our view of the present situation is that 50 percent of the 36 indicators are historically positive with only 19 percent negative. The balance of them are within the band of historically normal. This was the same result as May and August. Along with September, these […]
President Trump lifted the shipping restrictions on Puerto Rico on Thursday, at least temporarily waiving the Jones Act that prohibits non-U.S. flagged vessels from delivering shipments between two U.S. ports. With the decision, relief supplies can be brought from the mainland to devastated Puerto Rico by foreign-owned vessels. The waiver is limited to 10 days. […]
I am in Chicago and will be here until Tuesday when I make my way to Fort Wayne, Ind., to conduct one of our Steel 101 workshops. A special thank you to SDI and Paragon Steel for allowing our workshop to tour each of their plants. This workshop has been sold out for a number […]
We have a busy issue this evening, so I will keep my final thoughts brief. Next week I will be in Fort Wayne, Ind., as we conduct one of our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making and Marketing Fundamentals workshops. We will tour Steel Dynamics’ Butler facility and Paragon Steel’s flat rolled steel service center. […]
U.S. content in NAFTA automobiles is shrinking and contributing to the trade deficit America has with Canada and Mexico, according to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. In an editorial for the Washington Post, Ross cites a new study analyzing data from 1995 to 2011 that indicates U.S.-produced content in manufactured goods imported from Canada fell […]
There have been a number of master sheets showing projected steel mill maintenance outages for the last couple weeks of September through the end of this calendar year. Steel Market Update (SMU) is following through with our mill sources, as well as steel buyers, to see if we can confirm the outages and if there […]
On Friday, Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator to Lower from Neutral. It is our opinion that flat rolled steel prices will move lower over the next 30 days for the following 10 reasons: First, when the head of commercial of a domestic steel mill tells SMU that “transaction pricing cannot go […]
A note that SMU adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator to Lower from Neutral on Friday. I have explained 10 of the reasons why (and there are more) in the first article in tonight’s newsletter. If you would like to make comments, feel free to reach out to me at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. I will be working on […]
Both Current and Future Sentiment showed a slight decline as a single data point in the latest SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index, based on data gathered in mid-September. The index measures how buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful both in the current market environment, as well […]