We will begin our beginning of May steel market survey early on Monday morning and will keep it open until Thursday afternoon of this week. If you receive an invitation, please take a moment to click on the link which will take you to SurveyMonkey.com which hosts our questionnaire. Those who participate in our survey […]
Flat rolled steel mills have become less willing to negotiate flat rolled steel spot prices with their customers. During the analysis of the flat rolled steel market conducted by Steel Market Update earlier this week, we found large adjustments in negotiations on hot rolled pricing as well as spot galvanized steel pricing. Cold rolled actually […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S was positive this week for the 4th week in a row after being in negative territory for the prior 10 weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) […]
A quick Final Thoughts this evening as I am in Chicago for the Metals Industry Boy Scout Dinner. For those of you who have interesting sales stories from your steel career or otherwise, I am interested in collecting sales related stories/advice, etc. Please send your comments or stories to me at: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. A reminder that […]
One of the products which is provided to our Premium Level members only is our Key Market Indicators. Our KMI analysis is showing an improving (more positives than negatives) situation, especially in the flat rolled steel markets. An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers […]
My final thoughts will be relatively short and sweet this evening. I have begun to follow Chris Kuehl (pronounced keel) of Armada Corporate Intelligence. I first saw Chris speak at the FMA Toll Processing Conference in Austin, Texas and I was impressed. I suggest to my readers that they consider registering for a free trial […]
With the various flat rolled indexes reporting hot rolled pricing approaching $680 per ton in the mill spot market we are quite close to the $685 announced by Nucor on April 4th and matched by a number of the domestic steel mills. The question now is will the mills attempt to move prices up to […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S was positive this week for the 3rd week in a row after being in negative territory for the prior 10 weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) […]
For our plate customers, SSAB announced a $40 per ton plate price increase effective immediately. We will see if it sticks in the marketplace. We have a couple of minor bugs and tweaks we are working out of our systems and then we will release our Managing Price Risk II: Strategies & Execution workshop for […]
Once per month, Steel Market Update provides a flat rolled service center inventory forecast for our Premium Level members. We thought in light of the recent numbers released by the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) to see how our forecast for April compared with the actual figures compiled by the MSCI. As indicated in our […]
We learned today that ArcelorMittal will be taking down their #7 blast furnace at Indiana Harbor for two months: June & July 2014 (scheduled maintenance). The #7 furnace is capable of producing up to 11,500 tons of molten pig iron per day when ready at full capacity. Our assumption is US Steel Gary Works should […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our mid-April steel market survey this past week. Early in the survey process we approached a subject that we know is near and dear to those within the steel industry – where do our respondents see demand for their products. What we found is a clear sign of improving demand. […]
Question: How can you tell when a salesperson is lying? Answer: Their lips move. Of course from a salesperson perspective, the same question can be asked of buyers with the same response given as the punch line. The issue that you as a steel salesperson (or steel buyer for that matter) have to address is […]
Happy Easter to everyone! Normally Steel Market Update would not publish on Easter Sunday due to it being a holiday in the United States. However, we have so much information to share with our readers I decided not to let it wait and to publish. If domestic flat rolled steel prices continue to rise there […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index reached new highs this week. Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel were the most optimistic we have seen since SMU first began measuring Sentiment in October 2008. Our Sentiment Index was measured at +58 which is up 15 points since early April and exceeded the previous […]
According to Steel Market Update most recent flat rolled steel market survey results, lead times at the U.S. and Canadian steel mills continue to extend on hot rolled, cold rolld and coated products with the exception of Galvalume. Hot rolled lead times are now averaging 5.49 weeks, up from 4.87 weeks just two weeks ago […]
Flat rolled steel mills have become less willing to negotiate flat rolled steel spot prices with their customers. During the analysis of the flat rolled steel market conducted by Steel Market Update earlier this week, we found large adjustments in negotiations on hot rolled pricing as well as spot galvanized steel pricing. Cold rolled actually […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S was positive this week for the 2nd week in a row after being in negative territory for the prior 10 weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) […]
Our Steel 101 workshop on May 6-7, 2014 is sold out and we have a three person waiting list. We are working on two more workshops to be conducted over the balance of the year and we will advise the dates and locations once we have worked out all of the details. Our goal is […]
First, our questions posed to U.S. Steel remained unanswered as we reached the end of the day today. The last we heard they were running two blast furnaces at reduced capacities for each at Gary Works. It is not known exactly how many tons per day of pig iron or steel are being produced. Iron […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been producing our Steel Buyers Basics series off and on since we officially started the company in August 2008. The purpose of this series of articles was to provide educational materials and articles to the flat rolled steel industry in the hopes that those reading our material who start to […]
Here is what I know/understand regarding the situation at US Steel as of early Sunday evening, April 13th. Our sources are advising us USS is moving iron ore from Great Lakes to Gary. We are also following the vessels which are now being reported as in port in Minnesota loading ore. We are aware that […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S turned positive this week after being in negative territory for the prior 10 weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the previous 12-week average […]
To our Premium Level members – just a quick note to let you know that we publish Premium articles to the front of the website prior to sending them out in a supplemental newsletter. We have been waiting for imports by product, port and country to become available before we send out a supplemental issue. […]
For Thursday night’s issue my goal is to attempt to produce as accurate lead times for each mill as possible. This is easy for some mills who publish lead times on a weekly or, in at least one case, daily basis. Other mills hold the information a little closer to the vest. If you have […]
The following article is a continuation of our Steel Buyers Basics series and is written by Mario Briccetti. Mario is Principal of Briccetti & Associates, a Supply Chain consulting firm, and can be reached at Mario@mbriccetti.com In an earlier article I noted that the steel business is often subject to interruptions in supply and described […]
We are receiving many emails from readers and others associated with the flat rolled steel industry regarding the current state of the market, responses to the past two articles written by David Phelps (former president of the AIIS and one of our contributing writers) and on a number of other topics. We appreciate and encourage […]
The situation at US Steel Great Lakes, and now Gary Works, has not bridled the enthusiasm which has been growing within the flat rolled steel markets. We are seeing buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continuing to be optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful in both today’s market as well as three […]
Mill lead times moved out over the past two weeks. We are seeing lead times extending by as much as one week on hot rolled and cold rolled and three quarters of a week on galvanized. We did some quick checking and HRC, CRC and GI lead times are the furthest we have recorded since […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are reporting the domestic steel mills as much less willing to negotiate prices this week as compared to two weeks ago. Our market analysis saw major contraction in each of the products with hot rolled moving from 85 percent down to 48 percent. Cold rolled halved their previous […]