Steel producers and distributors told Steel Market Update this week that they remain busy serving customers, despite the disruption to the economy from the coronavirus. Not surprisingly, the mills appear very willing to negotiate spot prices to keep business flowing. The majority of service center and manufacturing executives responding to SMU’s questionnaire on Monday and […]
News on the spread of the coronavirus changes by the hour, which effects the outlook of steel buyers. But as of early this past week, based on Steel Market Update’s canvass of the market, the steel sector appears to have weathered the worst of the bad news so far. Steel Prices Most executives responding to […]
Trade attorney and Steel Market Update contributor Lewis Leibowitz offers the following update on events in Washington: I hope you all are well and complying with the stay-at-home restrictions. It’s tough, but imagine how our grandparents coped with the flu epidemic in 1918-19 with no internet and no Amazon. We will get through this. It’s […]
Trade attorney and Steel Market Update contributor Lewis Leibowitz offers the following update on events in Washington: Trade is only a part of the national and global response to the pandemic that is now sweeping the world—but in our interconnected world, it’s a pretty important part. So far, it’s not nearly as bad as other […]
John Packard is taking some time off… As we all hunker down (wondering if that’s the hint of a sore throat when we swallow), it’s easy to feel the walls closing in. The intellectual part of us knows the economy will return to normal eventually (indeed, there’s money to be made when the market comes […]
Coronavirus fears have taken a major toll on how steel executives view their prospects for success. Steel Buyers Sentiment, as measured by Steel Market Update, suffered the sharpest one-week decline in the index’s 11-year history. Sentiment plunged by 45 points, from a Current Sentiment reading of +58 down to +13, and a Future Sentiment reading […]
The new normal for me is talking to an industry executive on the phone and listening to the kids playing in the background…. We had a 45-point drop in both the Current and Future SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index this week (article is at top of tonight’s issue). This is the largest one-week change in […]
Flat Rolled = 46.1 Shipping Days of Supply Plate = 49 Shipping Days of Supply Flat Rolled As prices eroded in February, service centers further reduced their flat rolled inventories 4.6 percent month on month by month’s end, according to adjusted February data compared with January’s final. With 20 shipping days in February compared to […]
We had to change the way we calculate the adjusted data, which will also change how we derive our analysis. Previously, we adjusted the data to mirror the exact mix of service centers that responded to the previous month’s survey. We saw a decrease in participation in the March survey, which we can understand given […]
Canada voted to approve the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement without amendment on Friday, March 13, but its implementation may be delayed by the coronavirus. Following passage of the agreement, Canada’s parliament was dismissed for three weeks to combat the spread of the virus.The next step for Canada is “royal assent” by the governor general and a final […]
The world is changing, it is not ending. I expect the steel industry will go through some changes as well. In Europe, the car makers are closing manufacturing facilities. Europe seems to be a couple weeks ahead of us here in the United States. Will we see the same plant closures in a couple of […]
Trade attorney and Steel Market Update contributor Lewis Leibowitz offers the following update on events in Washington: Does anyone else feel like riding a roller coaster for the next six months? We have been on one for about seven weeks now and there is no end in sight. The time has arrived to consider what […]
Using U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) data, Steel Market Update has broken down the import tonnage of cold rolled sheet into coil and leveled, four thickness ranges, and how much was full hard, annealed and high strength. This update examines the total cold rolled sheet and strip imports into the U.S. for 2019 as a […]
Well, isn’t this special… Being Americans, I have seen my share of videos and cartoons where people are selling toilet paper and hand sanitizer like a drug deal. I must say I normally don’t have much food in the house. My freezer is now full. My son is a professional musician and last week he […]
Is it me, or has the world become much more complicated recently? The NBA has suspended games indefinitely. The NCAA “March Madness” basketball tournament will be played in empty stadiums. Princess Cruises just announced they are cancelling cruises for the next 60 days. Europeans will not be allowed to fly to the United States for […]
The world is changing in nanoseconds before our eyes. Did anyone think the whole country of Italy would be restricted/quarantined a few weeks back? Yesterday, Saudi Arabia decided to go to war with Russia over the price of oil, and voila the price drops 30 percent in one day. The U.S. has hardly begun testing […]
Steel buyers sentiment, as measured by Steel Market Update, has moved up and down within a small, three-point range since the beginning of the year. Both Current and Future Sentiment registered a very slight uptick in the past few weeks and remain in optimistic territory well above the average of +47 to +51 in 2019. […]
Average mill lead times for spot orders of flat rolled steel saw little change this past week. In fact, according to Steel Market Update’s surveys of the market, lead times have moved up or down by just a day or two, depending on the product, since the beginning of the year. Lead times for steel delivery […]
Price negotiations have tightened up noticeably as the mills seek to collect the $40 price increase they announced last week. Significantly more of the service center and manufacturing executives responding to Steel Market Update’s questionnaire this week said the mills are holding the line on prices, especially for hot rolled and galvanized. In the hot […]
Last week’s price hike by the mills did little to change the outlook of most steel buyers. The majority (52 percent) of those responding to Steel Market Update’s canvass of the market this past week still believe prices will remain the same, despite the latest $40 increase announced by the mills on Feb. 27. Another […]
Trade attorney and Steel Market Update contributor Lewis Leibowitz offers the following update on events in Washington: As I write today, the politics of trade are becoming clearer. I’ve often been asked to predict where things are going and how politics will affect the markets. Here goes. This election year, trade is more controversial than […]
We get all kinds of reactions to articles we publish. However, I was a bit surprised when one of our readers sent a note regarding our coverage of IHS Markit’s forecast of the impact of the coronavirus on the U.S. economy. The note said, “Article on coronavirus was despicable. Let’s just start a panic.” Usually, […]
Earlier this week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against an appeal by the American Institute for International Steel challenging the constitutionality of the Section 232 tariffs. The court affirmed a ruling by the U.S. Court of International Trade, which upheld the Trump administration’s tariffs on imported steel. “While disappointed, we […]
Over the past two days Tim Triplett and I have been participating in the FMA Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The mood of the steel buyers I met with was moderately negative when it came to the ability of the steel mills to collect the price increases announced. One very large service center buyer […]
U.S. Steel continues to make interesting moves having now purchased the balance of the ownership in USS/Posco (UPI), 49.9 percent of Big River Steel with an option to purchase the balance, the $1 billion+ capital investment in the endless casting, rolling and cogeneration at Mon Valley Works and the $750 billion investment in Gary Works. […]
The American Institute for International Steel suffered another setback in its constitutional challenge of the Trump administration’s use of Section 232 tariffs to restrict steel and aluminum imports on the basis of national security. In a ruling on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the claim by AIIS that the “non-delegation doctrine” makes it […]
Trade attorney and Steel Market Update contributor Lewis Leibowitz offers the following update on events in Washington: As a participant of long standing in the saga of international trade cases, I can say that this week was particularly interesting. First, the U.S. International Trade Commission did something unusual—last Tuesday, it made a final negative determination […]
John Packard is traveling… The mills announced another $40 increase in flat rolled prices this week in the hopes of reversing the recent downturn in steel prices. Instead of an increase, ArcelorMittal released minimum base prices of $620 for hot rolled and $820 for cold rolled and coated. Steel Market Update puts the current benchmark […]
Steel Market Update raised its Flat Rolled Price Momentum Indicator to Neutral yesterday from Lower in anticipation of a price hike believed imminent from the mills. As expected, Nucor and U.S. Steel both announced increases today of $40 per net ton on all new spot orders of hot rolled, cold rolled and galvanized steel, effective […]
The U.S. International Trade Commission rejected antidumping and countervailing duties for fabricated structural steel from Canada, China and Mexico. The USITC found that the U.S. industry is not materially injured or threatened by imports of the products from the three countries after a Commerce investigation determined that China and Mexico were subsidizing the products and […]