Factory orders for manufactured goods grew 1.6 percent in January, following a 2.9 percent decrease in December and showing the largest increase since June. Durable goods orders rose 4.7 percent led by transportation equipment orders that were up 11.4 percent in January. Nondurable goods dropped 1.4 percent to $226.8 billion. Factory orders came in below […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the ninth consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the […]
Steel prices continued their three month hike higher as SMU benchmark hot rolled price index (average) for the month was $408 per ton. Even with some minor stumbles noted in hot rolled and cold rolled during the second half of the month, our Price Momentum Indicator is still pointing toward higher prices over the next […]
The Chicago Business Barometer surprised economists with an 8 point tumble to 47.6 in February after increasing to 55.6 in January. Sharp declines in production in new orders contributed to the weaker readings. Economists expected a milder decline to 53; a reading below 50 indicates a contraction in business activity. As new orders dropped sharply, […]
The U.S. manufacturing sector in February remained in contraction for the fifth consecutive month according to the latest Manufacturing ISM Report on Business. The PMI did better than expected by economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Barclays who predicted a headline index of 48 and 47.5, respectively. The February PMI increased 1.3 percentage […]
The following article is one of the key proprietary products produced for our Premium level members. We wanted to share it with all of our readers this evening to give everyone a feel for how we are seeing the steel economy based on “the numbers.” An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at […]
Durable goods in January rose 4.9 percent in January, reversing a December’s plunge of 4.6 and perhaps indicating stabilization for U.S. manufacturing. The January jump was the biggest monthly gain since March 2015. Orders rose for all major categories of the industrial goods but especially for autos and aircraft. The chart below, depicting the three […]
According to Baker Hughes data from February 26, 2016, the U.S rig count for the week was 502 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 12 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 13 to 400 rigs, gas rigs up 1 to 102 rigs, and […]
Consumer confidence fell from 97.8 in January to 92.2 in February following improvements in December and January. The three month moving average (3MMA) declined from 95.6 in January to 95.4 in February and therefore obliterated the single month decline which is the way we prefer to look at data such as this which is quite […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the eighth consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the […]
Currency markets have been anything but stable since our last update on January 25th and this shows up clearly in our examination of the currencies of the steel trading nations. Expectations of four rate hikes by the FOMC seem to have flown out the window. On February 3rd Josh Brown wrote, “Perhaps the biggest headline […]
The following is the Chicago Federal Reserve statement followed by our own graphical analysis. The CFNAI is an excellent reality check for much of the economic analysis that we routinely provide in The Steel Market Update and is also a reasonably good predictor of the direction of steel demand with a six to nine month […]
Metalforming companies in the U.S. and Canada are expecting slightly improved business conditions in the next three months. Surveyed members of the Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) reported average daily shipping levels in February were higher than three months ago and anticipate steady order activity for the next three months. Companies reporting workers on short time […]
According to Baker Hughes data from February 19, 2016, the U.S rig count for the week was 514 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 27 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 26 to 413 rigs, gas rigs down 1 to 101 rigs, and […]
As part of your Premium level service, Steel Market Update (SMU) analyzes the service center shipment and inventory data and provides a short term forecast for carbon flat rolled steel shipments, inventories and how they will impact pricing over the next four months. This is done through a proprietary model and the results provided are […]
Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The index had an all-time high of 107.9108 in December 2014 but on a month over month basis has declined for nine of the last thirteen months. January was a welcome respite with an increase of 0.92 percent, which is huge, and […]
Steel Market Update conducted our mid-February flat rolled steel market trends analysis over the past four days. The SMU Steel Sentiment Indices are one of a group of proprietary products which are derived from this particular analysis which we conduct twice per month. When reviewing the data we found that our “Current” Sentiment Index dropped […]
Steel Market Update conducted our flat rolled steel market trends analysis this week, a portion of which is dedicated to understanding domestic mill lead times from a group perspective. These lead times shown in the graphic below have nothing to do with the mill lead time sheets produced by the domestic mills. The data shown […]
Hot rolled continues to be the weakest product according to those responding to this week’s flat rolled steel analysis. We found 82 percent of our respondents reporting the domestic mills as willing to negotiate hot rolled pricing. This is much higher than the 54 percent we reported two weeks ago and takes us back to […]
After a generally positive performance in 2015, the Architectural Billings Index started the year with a slip to 49.6 in January from December’s reading of 51.3. A score above 50 indicates growth in design services and below 50 indicates a decline. AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker called January “rocky” but noted “the fundamentals are mostly […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the seventh consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the […]
Steel workers and chief executives from 17 European member states took to the streets in Brussels on Monday to protest the dumping of steel products and granting of market economy status to China. Market status would only worsen the European steel crisis, claimed protestors, and cost tens of thousands of jobs. EUROFER, the European Steel […]
On Monday there was a meeting between Russia and select OPEC members where they agreed to an oil output freeze at January levels in an effort to tackle a global supply glut. This was a closed door meeting in Doha between Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Qatar and Russia. Evidently there was a caveat that other members […]
On Sunday Steel Market Update published an article about the Carrier announcement that they would be moving their manufacturing and distribution facilities from Indianapolis, Indiana to Mexico. The announcement got the attention of Donald Trump who mentioned it during the debates on Saturday. Our article and the news also got the attention of a number […]
Business activity continued to decline for New York manufacturers in the latest Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The general business conditions index picked up 3 points registering -16.6, its seventh consecutive month in contraction. The index was weaker than economist estimates of 10.0 to 10.50. Most indexes in the survey remained in contraction in February but […]
Figure 1 shows published data for the growth of Chinese GDP, industrial production and consumer prices through the fourth quarter of 2015. The GDP and industrial production portions of this graph are three month moving averages. The growth of GDP was 6.8 percent in the 4th quarter, and decelerating to its slowest pace since the […]
According to Baker Hughes data from February 12, 2016, the U.S rig count for the week was 541 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This is a decrease of 30 rigs when compared to last week, with oil rigs down 28 to 439 rigs, gas rigs down 2 to 102 rigs, and […]
Over the past few weeks Steel Market Update has been reviewing the lead times being published and/or provided to their customers in order to see if there are any significant changes. As a general statement we have found cold rolled and coated steels (galvanized, Galvalume, galvannealed) have extended lead times and are the tightest of […]
This report summarizes total steel supply annually from 2007 through 2015 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States was positive this week for the sixth consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the […]