The question steel buyers are going to be asking themselves as this week begins is, will the Trump administration finally announce their findings on Section 232 and will this announcement allow President Trump to move on the duties or quotas expected by the domestic steel mills and many steel buyers? The question I am asking […]
This is my gut feeling, my opinion based on what I have been reading and watching in the news like everyone else. The world is trying to figure out if President Trump is going to start a trade war and the first bullets are made with flat rolled steel, pipe and long products. I am […]
Happy Independence Day Weekend for those in the United States and Happy Dominion Day (150 years) for those in Canada. I hope everyone is enjoying some extra time off with family and friends. From here all is quiet – the only news we have to share is a change in the date of our next […]
Holiday Schedule for Steel Market Update: We will produce a short version of our newsletter on Sunday evening, July 2. We will not produce a newsletter on Tuesday, July 4, and our offices will be closed on both Monday and Tuesday of next week in observance of the Fourth of July Holiday in the USA and […]
,Good evening from New York City (or good morning if you are reading this in the AM). I have been in the city since Sunday evening meeting with manufacturers, service centers, trading companies, steel mills and some of the financial community. The conversations started with one word – Section – and then three numbers – […]
I am at 35,000 feet and, according to the monitor in front of me, we are traveling at 564 miles per hour and are located over the state of Utah. After working with a great group of attendees at our California Steel 101 program, I am on my way to New York City, where Tim […]
I am in California as we are conducting our 21st Steel 101 workshop. We have a great group coming as far away as New Jersey in the East, Singapore to the West, Washington state, Oregon, Indiana, Michigan, Texas and many more states. I want to thank California Steel Industries (CSI) and John Walburg for a […]
I have a 4 a.m. wake-up call as Diana, Brett and I head for California to conduct our next Steel 101 workshop. We have a great class and we are looking forward to meeting new people, working with California Steel again and trying to stay cool as temps are suppose to be above 90 degrees […]
With the announcement of a flat rolled price increase out of USS/POSCO, the table is now set for California Steel on the West Coast (which SMU’s Steel 101 workshop will be visiting on Thursday of this week), as well as the East Coast and Canadian steel mills, to make announcements of their own. Benchmark hot […]
As you can see by the number of articles in tonight’s newsletter, there is a LOT going on and we are working over-time trying to stay on top of everything. For that reason we have put off our MSCI articles until Sunday evening’s issue (we will actually publish them to the front of our website […]
There are a lot of moving pieces to this market. Government intervention into the natural flow of business is/will be impacting trade, steel prices and possibly where products get manufactured in the future. It is both a scary time and an exciting time to be in the steel business. For me, I am glad I […]
Late last week we got word from a steel buyer that the Indian steel mill – Uttam – was advising their customers of their intention to discontinue exports of light gauge galvanized steel to the United States. I did contact Uttam USA offices for comment and, as of this evening, I had not yet received […]
For those of you either attending or thinking of attending the 2017 SMU Steel Summit Conference in Atlanta on August 28, 29 & 30th our room block at the host hotel, which is the Atlanta Airport Marriott Gateway Hotel located next to the Georgia International Convention Center (GICC). Even though our room block is complete […]
With the exception of ArcelorMittal and Cliffs Natural Resources, the U.S. steel industry passed on making statements about climate change and how much the steel industry has done over the past twenty years to minimize its carbon footprint and to reduce pollutants in the air and water. The rise of Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) and […]
Multiple sources are advising SMU that California Steel (CSI) has announced a $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt) increase for production orders during the first two weeks of July. After that they will evaluate pricing and make a further announcement. We will investigate this further over the next couple of days and advise our readers what this […]
I will be in New York City during this year’s Steel Success Strategies Conference. I just booked my hotel at the Marriott Marquise and for three days my total was just shy of $1700… Ugh. If you attend the SMU Steel Summit Conference and book while our room block is still available your cost for […]
For our USA customers welcome back from the Memorial Day Holiday weekend. Our scrap sources are advising us that as of today they are not aware of any cancellations of existing ferrous scrap orders by the domestic steel mills. This expectation is for a “soft sideways” market, meaning prices would remain the same, although there […]
During the Section 232 hearing at the Department of Commerce yesterday, Wilbur Ross told U.S. Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH) that his report on steel Section 232 will be on the President’s desk by the end of June. This coincides with the prognostication of trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz who felt the President could react by the […]
I have been working day and night trying to get a list of the invited speakers for the Section 232 (national security) hearing at the U.S. Department of Commerce on the morning of Wednesday, May 24th. The US Department of Commerce came out with the list to the media late this afternoon. The hearings starts […]
I am working on getting a strong keynote speaker to discuss the impact politics is having on the economy and on our daily lives. I have narrowed the list down to a few names so I thought it might be good to let our readers chime in and tell us who they would like to […]
This evening I attended the Metals Industry Boy Scout Dinner in Chicago. The steel, and now metals industries have supported the Chicago area Boy Scouts for more than 25 years and, once again, there was close to 1,000 mostly steel people at the cocktail party and dinner. This included steel mills, service centers, trading companies, […]
I have read reports that suggest the first fully integrated mill in Vietnam, Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, has received permission to test their #1 blast furnace. The Vietnamese government has approved the pollution control equipment and the company is going to be allowed to run the blast furnace on a six-month trial period. In July […]
Happy Mother’s Day (at least for one more hour here on the East Coast)… We are beginning our mid-May flat rolled steel market trends survey at 8 AM ET tomorrow (Monday) morning. If you receive an invitation to participate please take a few minutes to click on the button on your invitation and complete our […]
As I mentioned in one of the articles in tonight’s edition of SMU, I have been speaking with trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz on a whole host of subjects. We will be working on an article to help our readers better understand the ramifications of the Section 232 review (national security) and what powers the President […]
My “final thoughts” is an area of the newsletter where I can provide some of my opinions on a wide range of topics, provide information or updates on our workshops and conference or provide late-breaking tidbits from around the world that come in late in the day and are unable to make it into a […]
This week I will be working with as many trading companies as I can find to talk about what is going on with foreign steel orders and their reaction to the uncertainty being painted with the Section 232 investigation. I have heard of orders being cancelled. I have heard of countries no longer being in […]
Hectic day here at SMU as our server was down (actually the entire server farm) for a couple of hours right at our peak publishing time. You may have noticed our website either moving very slow or not being able to access the site at all between 4 PM ET and 6 PM. Everything is […]
The domestic steel mills did not cancel scrap orders for April delivery that had not yet arrived. This is a sign that the steel mills believe prices will be sideways to slightly higher for May delivery than what they negotiated for April. All is quiet as the steel mills and their scrap suppliers jockey for […]
I have received a number of comments on the LinkedIn posts that I have put out there over the weekend. I shared our “Black Swan” article on my personal LinkedIn account as well as our Steel Market Update LinkedIn group account. I also received a question about the “average margin for a service center” that […]
The industry is abuzz with all kinds of speculation as to how the Section 232 investigation will impact traders and steel buyers. Another Section 232 was announced and should have been signed by President Trump today covering aluminum. I was texting with one of the steel mills this morning about their access to aluminum for […]