One item I keep hearing from the service centers I speak with – and it doesn’t matter what the product is – hot rolled, galvanized, Galvalume I am hearing the same thing. Business is good, in some cases excellent, but margins are being squeezed. Competition appears to be willing to move off inventory for whatever […]
Today is the last day of the month and the last day of the 3rd Quarter 2014. According to one of the attorney’s who spoke at our Steel Summit Conference at the beginning of September today is the day that the domestic mills would want to file a dumping suit so they would not have […]
Everyone continues to watch for how the consolidation of the Severstal NA assets (Dearborn and Columbus steel mills) will impact the flat rolled steel markets. Early indications are for shorter lead times out of the SDI Columbus facility and Dearborn lead times are shorter than the Middletown and Ashland plants for AK Steel. But, it […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. showed hot rolled coil prices as falling this week for the fifth week in a row after being in positive territory for the previous four weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the […]
We anticipate closing registration for the Ft. Wayne, Indiana Steel 101 workshop on Friday of this week. We have (once again) an excellent group of companies and people registered to attend with a record number of women attending (11). If you would like to learn more about our Introduction to Steelmaking & Market Fundamentals workshop […]
Consolidation may not be over yet. We saw a report this evening out of Minnesota about how Essar Steel Minnesota has failed to secure financing to complete the $1.8 billion taconite pellet facility. The company’s India parent company was so over-leveraged it was put on the top ten watch list by Credit Suisse one year […]
The following article was originally published in our Premium edition of Steel Market Update last week after the MSCI shipment and inventory data was released. Service Center Apparent Inventory Deficit/Excess is one of the proprietary products available for our Premium Level customers. We thought our Executive customers might be interested in how our forecast did […]
Based on the results from our most recent Steel Market Update steel market analysis, flat rolled steel mill lead times, the number of weeks needed to produce and ship a new order, remained above 2013 levels on all products. SMU conducted one of our twice monthly steel market surveys this past week. During the process […]
Flat rolled steel mills continue to negotiate pricing on hot rolled, galvanized and Galvalume products and less enthusiastically on cold rolled, according to our latest flat rolled steel market analysis conducted this past week. Galvanized continued as the product manufacturing companies and service centers were reporting where prices were negotiable gathering 68 percent of the […]
The following is part of a series of articles Steel Market Update has been producing on the subject of steel sales. The series is called: The Truth About Selling Steel and today, with the help of John Temples, we are going to introduce communication and engagement. In the coming weeks we will expand upon our […]
The following articles are for our Premium level customers. Thank you again for your business. We also want you to know that the latest imports by product, port and country are in the website (must be logged in as Premium customer in order to access the data) as is our latest Survey data which was […]
Steel Market Update nailed (in our opinion) last month’s forecast for August. We projected that the -193,000 tons deficit from the end of July (based on our proprietary formula for what a balanced flat rolled inventory level should be for the U.S. service centers) would be eliminated and move into a very small excess situation. […]
For those who are keeping track I will be in Arkansas tomorrow for the Big River Steel groundbreaking. It will be interesting to see for myself what all the fuss is about… More about the groundbreaking (and maybe some of the fuss) in Tuesday evening’s issue of SMU. We have also been working on a […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are becoming more optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful based on current market conditions according to Steel Market Update and their Steel Buyers Sentiment Index. SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index rose to +64 or +11 points higher than where it was measured during the beginning of […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained negative this week for the fourth week in a row after being in positive territory for the previous four weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) […]
It will be interesting to see how AK Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI) interact with the newly purchased Dearborn and Columbus steel mills. One SDI customer told us today that the mill tends to be very deliberate in their decision making process and they did not expect radical changes for a number of weeks if […]
Spot prices remained stable this week as steel buyers wait to see how the absorption of Severstal by AK Steel and Steel Dynamics will affect the marketplace. It is anticipated that it could take 3-4 weeks before we get a clear indication as to how the commercial departments for each mill will integrate the former […]
For those of you who are new to Steel Market Update (SMU) the Final Thoughts segment of the newsletter is reserved for me (John Packard, Founder and Publisher) to basically spout off on a wide variety of topics. This is the space I reserve for my opinions as well as in your face marketing (sorry, […]
With iron ore approaching $80 per dry metric ton for spot 62% Fe fines in China (according to our Asian iron ore trading source as well as The Steel Index), I asked John Eckstein, retired metallurgist last with Severstal Sparrows Point and one of our Steel 101 instructors, to comment on the changes the price […]
I am hearing that the closing date for both AK Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI) on the Severstal Dearborn and Columbus assets could come as soon as next Monday, September 15, 2014. We have two articles in tonight’s edition of SMU regarding imports, One from Peter Wright’s perspective and one that I worked on most […]
The new coating extras are creating a bit of a bumpy ride for some mills/customers while others are adapting and moving forward. This is something we will need to watch over the next few weeks as we transition to the new extras. Our sources are advising us that some mills are making adjustments to base […]
After setting a record optimistic high of +68 at the beginning of August 2014, SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index has now declined for the second time and stands at +53. The most recent measurement is still well within the optimistic parameters for our index. Even so, we are concerned with the 15 point dip that […]
Flat rolled steel mill Lead times remained relatively stable compared to those reported during the middle of August. However, when compared to the lead times reported in early September 2013 we are finding the latest lead times to be slightly extended. Hot rolled lead times are averaging 4.37 weeks based on the responses received in […]
Steel Market Update conducted one of our flat rolled steel market surveys this past week. One of the key questions asked during the survey process is regarding the willingness of the domestic flat rolled steel mills to negotiate spot pricing. In last week’s survey our respondents reported a jump in the percentage reporting the steel […]
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 at present is thirty five, the Chicago Fed Mid-West Manufacturing Index is still on hold to enable the staff to complete a major re-vamp of the […]
On Tuesday we will do a complete review of the new zinc coating extras. The last report we provided mistakenly identified the Dofasco extras as those of ArcelorMittal USA. There is a difference in their extras due to the value of the Canadian currency against the U.S. dollar. We already have information on our website […]
The following is a recap of the data compiled during the month of August 2014. For the second month in a row our SMU Price Momentum Indicator remained at Neutral as steel prices have been relatively stable with the $673 average up $6 from the July average. However, by the end of the month our […]
We’ve gone well past hectic as we are literally within a few hours of kicking off our 4th Steel Summit Conference in Atlanta. We exceeded our registration goals and we had to expand both of the rooms we are using at the Georgia International Convention Center to accommodate the extra people. The place is set […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. turned negative this week after being in positive territory for the previous four 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 […]
Due to the Labor Day Holiday, Steel Market Update will not publish our newsletter on Sunday evening. We will publish again on Tuesday evening which is the night prior to the opening of our conference. Thursday we are not planning on producing a newsletter – or, if we do it will be a limited issue […]