Last night for me in Maine. It’s been a wonderful long weekend to escape some of the heat of Florida for a few days. I will be traveling most of the day tomorrow and I will be back in my office on Tuesday for the balance of the week before leaving for Minnesota. We will […]
It’s a beautiful day in Maine. I spoke to the Chain Link Fence Manufacturers Institute this morning. The group was engaged and had many questions regarding the Section 232 tariffs. I was followed by Dr. Lynn Reaser, the Chief Economist for the Fermonian Business & Economic Institute. She works specifically with the CLFMI and she […]
My understanding is the salespeople at the former CSN Terre Haute, Ind., steel mill will remain with Steel Dynamics. SDI did something similar when they purchased what is now SDI Columbus, Miss. I have heard that Paul Navetta is the sales manager at SDI Terre Haute. I also understand that Jerry Richardson will remain with […]
I will be in my office on Monday and Tuesday of this week before traveling to Maine to speak to the Chain Link Fence Manufacturers Institute on Thursday. I have a very busy schedule over the next couple of months leading up to our 8th SMU Steel Summit Conference on Aug. 27-29. I hope I […]
Welcome back to those of you in the United States who had the Fourth of July off, but didn’t decide to take a few extra days and extend the holiday. SMU was closed on Tuesday and Wednesday in honor of the Fourth and also to give myself a bit of a break having just been […]
Good evening from another sunny and warm day in London. Diana and I have been here since Wednesday morning of last week. We spent two full days at the headquarters of the CRU Group and another two and a half days sightseeing around London as this is our first trip to England. Having spent a […]
I am in London attending meetings with our new parent company, the CRU Group. I have been very impressed at the depth of the work being done by the CRU team. I will be sharing more about the CRU Group in the days and weeks ahead. I do want to stress to those of you […]
John Packard is on an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic, on his way to meet with our new colleagues at the CRU Group, which is headquartered in London. I’m sure John would agree, as he travels far away, that this comment from a Steel Market Update subscriber hits very close to home. Responding to our […]
As of Monday, every registration we receive for this year’s SMU Steel Summit Conference will result in a new record for our conference. Our goal is 800 and we are only 150 people away from achieving it with 63 days to go… The extreme travel is upon Diana and myself as we leave for the […]
I spent all day on Wednesday of this week in the Pittsburgh offices of the CRU Group. I was impressed with the people working out of Pittsburgh and was even more impressed with the size and scope of the company here in the United States and across the world. The company indexes all kinds of […]
We are sliding into summer and so far (knock on wood) we are not hearing of any erosion in demand. Those with whom we have spoken over the past week are optimistic about business, although concerned about the uncertainty caused by the Section 232s and now the escalation in trade issues with China using the […]
I got a note from one of our readers who pointed out that Sept. 18 & 19 are Holy Days on the Jewish calendar. These were the days selected for our first SMU 201: Intro to Advanced High Strength & Other New Steels workshop, which is going to be held at AK Steel Research and […]
I am excited for you, our customers. I have been working closely with the CRU Group, and our members will begin to see some subtle changes to the articles we write. One will be the use of CRU data on such items as our Foreign vs. Domestic Price Spread articles, which we will publish in […]
I (and the SMU team) are firmly ensconced in trying to learn all we can about our new owners the CRU Group, while at the same time answering questions from them about our products and services and how we can provide the most value to our members. One of the first things that came up […]
I am finally home long enough to gather my thoughts and hopefully get back to providing some insights into the flat rolled, plate and scrap markets from my perspective. There is obviously a lot of uncertainty connected to the Section 232 tariffs in both steel and aluminum. The Trump administration appears to have an intense […]
I have just returned from three days in Memphis where we conducted our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop. We had a packed house of motivated steel people from a wide variety of companies. Nucor Hickman and Nucor-Yamato did a great job of hosting our group as we toured both steel […]
It has been an incredibly long day as we went on two mill tours and taught a Steel 101 classroom session. As I write my final thoughts for this evening, we are on our way back to Memphis where we will muster our strength and head out to our Steel 101/Nucor cocktail party and dinner […]
Steel Market Update will be conducting our early June flat rolled and plate steel market analysis beginning at 8:30 a.m. ET on Monday. If you receive an invitation to participate, please take a few moments to open the email and answer the first question at the bottom of the message. That will take you to […]
It has been an incredibly busy day. The Trump administration was busy taking care of our “friends…” Canada, Mexico and the European Union are no longer excluded from the 232 tariffs. I got a note from a mill friend of mine who laid out the scenario as he saw it: “The irony of this whole […]
Welcome back to those who were off for the Memorial Day Holiday here in the United States. If you are extending your time off, well I’m jealous as we are back in the thick of it here at Steel Market Update. As expected, we didn’t see much movement between the flat rolled steel prices we […]
The SMU Steel Summit Conference is steaming toward 550 registrations as we forge ahead to our goal of 800 attendees. We have 234 individual companies registered as of this morning. We did not break through the 500+ registration mark last year until the end of July. Some more interesting facts for those thinking of attending […]
I spent most of today canvassing the flat rolled and plate steel markets. A portion of the results of my inquiries can be found in our pricing article (indexes) and Tim Triplett’s article entitled, “SMU Q&A: No Signs of a Price ‘Breakout’ Either Way.” Many steel buyers are confused by the lack of clarity in […]
We continue to book more registrations for the 2018 SMU Steel Summit Conference, which will be held on Aug. 27-29 at the Georgia International Convention Center right next to the Atlanta International Airport (ATL). Some of the companies that registered late last week: Hyundai Steel USA, Tata Steel, McNichols Company, ALCOS Machinery Inc., USS Posco, […]
Trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz advised me earlier this afternoon that the U.S. Department of Commerce did provide a final determination ruling on the Vietnam circumvention complaint. The DOC ruled in favor of the domestic steel mills (affirmative ruling) which means Vietnamese coated steel will be considered to be from China unless there is certification (proof) […]
I am in Miami (South Beach) for a Bank of America Merrill Lynch conference. A little different than I am used to, but I guess the insights that Lewis Leibowitz and I bring on the market may help investors. I will be back in my office sometime late on Wednesday afternoon. The questions that Lewis […]
SMU’s Steel Summit Conference hotel room block has been sold out at the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway, Atlanta Airport Renaissance and SpringHill Suits Gateway hotels. I am sure there are rooms at these hotels, but they will no longer honor our blocked hotel rates and will charge the rack rates. We have added another Marriott […]
I am in Chicago this evening attending the Metals Industry Boy Scout Dinner. Joining me is Tim Triplett, so please excuse tonight’s issue if it seems a little shorter than normal. The Vietnam circumvention final ruling has been delayed another week. I was speaking to a prospective new customer yesterday and realized as I talked […]
The final circumvention decision on Vietnam is due tomorrow, but will not be announced to the public until Thursday. We will have a full article and comments from trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz in Thursday evening’s issue of Steel Market Update. The recent Court of Appeals case may have some impact on the Vietnam final determination. […]
Some quick housekeeping regarding this week’s schedule. On Monday I will be going out with two requests via email. The first will be for those service centers who participate in our service center inventories index. I hope to have those emails out to each of the distributors between 7:30 and 8:30 AM ET. Around 9 […]
Today, we thought we would get the final determination of the Vietnam/China circumvention complaint. Steel Market Update has been in constant contact on this subject with trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz who advised us yesterday evening, “DOC announced today that the final Vietnam circumvention determination will be May 9, extended from May 2. The determination will […]