Steel Market Update (SMU) produces for our Premium level members a number of articles/analysis related to the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) data which is released on a monthly basis. One of the articles is our Service Center Inventories Apparent Excess/Deficit analysis. Our Apparent Excess/Deficit is the number of tons either over or under what […]
We are now one week away from our 5th Steel Summit Conference. As I have mentioned before, we will set a new record for attendance this year, potentially breaking last year’s record by 80 to 100 people. Our Steel Summit Conference continues to get accolades from those in the industry for the quality of our […]
The people who buy and sell flat rolled steel for a living continue to be optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful both now and three to six months into the future. However, the year over year weakening (or less optimistic) trend that we have seen for most, if not all of this calendar […]
Lead times for hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels continue to remain moderately short at most of the domestic steel mills according to the results of this week’s flat rolled steel market analysis. Hot rolled lead times averaged 3.38 weeks which is essentially unchanged over the past month and below the 4 week […]
Based on the results of our latest flat rolled steel market analysis (survey) the U.S. and Canadian steel mills continue to be willing to negotiate prices of hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels. Benchmark hot rolled, which has been hit especially hard by the drought in orders from the energy markets, had 80 […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our mid-August flat rolled steel market review this week. We received our final responses this afternoon and we are ready to report on a number of the subjects covered this week. Buyers and sellers of steel are of the opinion that the trade suits on hot rolled, cold rolled and […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States has now dropped down into negative territory after bouncing around zero percent for the last four weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil (HRC) price […]
You may have noticed that I haven’t been pushing the Steel Summit Conference quite as much as in the past. This is due to the fact that we are coming close to filling the space allotted. We are expecting a full house and a tremendous program. If you would like to attend we have not […]
With three direct flat rolled trade cases plus various suits affecting pipe and tube and oil country tubular goods, keeping track of all of the important dates can be mind-numbing. Especially when critical circumstances are alleged or extensions are requested (and we have seen both already in the CORE suit). We asked trade attorney Lewis […]
It was very sad to hear of the passing of John Correnti earlier today. Mr. Correnti at 68 years old still had much to give to the steel industry and his Big River Steel mill will only be but one part of his legacy. The steel industry is buzzing on the news and I have […]
It’s not every day that you get three flat rolled steel trade cases filed back to back to back. With the domestic steel mills clearly focused on removing as much hot rolled, cold rolled and coated steels from the market, we asked steel buyers for their opinions on what will happen from here? Prices of […]
I was speaking with the owner of a manufacturing company late last week. He told me his company had a number of union plants and he has negotiated a number of union contracts over the past few years. “People don’t strike anymore,” he said, “unless someone puts a line in the sand and forces the […]
On Tuesday six steel mills located east of the Rocky Mountains filed an antidumping and countervailing duty petition against seven countries: Australia, Brazil, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Turkey and the United Kingdom. What makes this suit of particular interest to those on the West Coast USA is the source supply for two […]
The flat rolled steel trading community has been hit and hit hard by the filing of antidumping trade suits on galvanized, Galvalume (zinc-aluminum) . As one trader put it to us earlier this week, “Business as usual has been blown up for the traders.” A number of traders spoke to SMU about the scope of […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States has been bouncing between positive and negative territory for the last four weeks. 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 […]
There are so many dumping suits being filed at the same time that it is difficult to keep track of the various dates as to when actions will be taken either by the US Department of Commerce of the US International Trade Commission (ITC). There are 5 major groups of suits which affect the flat […]
Six domestic steel mills joined together to file a hot rolled trade suit today. This is now the third such suit since the filing against corrosion resistant (galvanized & zinc-aluminum or Galvalume) on June 3rd and the cold rolled petition of a couple of weeks ago. With the HR case the mills have hit the […]
With the filing of the hot rolled trade case (which was expected by almost everyone in the industry and the date had been leaked long ago) we now have all flat rolled products followed by Steel Market Update involved. It will take time to sort through all of the data and for the process to […]
Recently, Steel Market Update had a conversation with trade attorney Lewis E. Leibowitz and we spoke about the purpose behind the U.S. trade laws. He told us that the impacted industry, in this case the steel industry, should be using the trade laws in order to get the “breathing room” or time needed in order […]
Last year I (Mario Briccetti) wrote an article in Steel Market Update on the subject of Conflict Materials. On August 4, the Wall Street Journal published a story on this subject, which started out by stating, “Hundreds of US Public companies are coming up short as they face a deadline to reveal whether their supply […]
The first thing we need to talk about is the rumor that we have heard from multiple sources that there will be a trade case announced on hot rolled coil this week. Our sources are telling us the information is a couple of weeks old and may change but the date being suggested in August […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) reported their Steel Buyers Sentiment Index (current situation) to be unchanged from the last measurement made during the middle of July. The +56 being reported is down 2 points from the beginning of July and 12 points from the +68 reported at the beginning of August 2014. The Steel Buyers Sentiment […]
With the exception of Galvalume, steel mill lead times were reported as being essentially unchanged from what was reported during the middle of July by those who responded to this week’s SMU flat rolled survey. Hot rolled lead times continue to be one week shorter than what we measured one year ago and essentially unchanged […]
With the exception of Galvalume, all of the other flat rolled steels followed by Steel Market Update saw at least two-thirds of our survey respondents reporting the mills as willing to negotiate spot pricing. Eighty percent of those responding to our inquiries about hot rolled pricing termed the mills as willing to negotiate. Cold rolled […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price MoMo Index for hot rolled steel in the United States reverted back into positive territory following a negative dip last 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 […]
We released our Steel Summit Conference App this morning to all of our attendees. Almost immediately I got my first comment from the president of a manufacturing company who downloaded the App. “John, the app is excellent. Clean look and easy to navigate. Looking forward to seeing you next month.” The comment was made on […]
On June 3rd Nucor, US Steel, ArcelorMittal USA, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics and California Steel filed antidumping and countervailing duty petition against China, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Italy on corrosion-resistant steels. To put this into layman’s terms the domestic mills filed a dumping (AD) and CVD suit on producers of galvanized and Galvalume (zinc-aluminum) […]
The Steel Summit Conference is pushing 230 people and we have 4 weeks to go. We sold out the room block for September 1st. We should (we hope) be able to get more rooms added, however the room block expires either when we sell out the revised number or on August 10th, whichever comes first. […]
Flat rolled steel prices, and the momentum associated with steel price movement, have been stuck for quite some time as you can see by our SMU Price Momentum at the top of the table below. As a result, our benchmark hot rolled price average is $3 per ton higher than what we reported at the […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) received this Letter to the Editor from a steel trading company executive providing an opinion on the recent slew of antidumping trade suits on flat rolled steels: First of all congratulations to Dave Phelps for his comments. As the longtime president of AIIS he has personally seen many years of domestic […]