This is part of a series of articles for those associated with the steel industry who are interested in steel sales or steel purchasing. Steel Market Update “Truth About Selling Steel” as well as our “Steel Buyers Basics” articles can be found on our website and are available to the public. Steel Market Update (SMU) […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum continued its downward trend for the 13th week in a row. MoMo, which is a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements […]
Buyers and sellers of steel are beginning to feel the strain of reduced demand (whether seasonal or otherwise), stable to falling steel prices and a very competitive service center spot market which impacts distributors margins. The bottom line is those actively involved in the flat rolled steel industry in the United States and Canada are […]
Last year at this time hot rolled steel prices averaged $670 per ton and were close to the peak for the year which was $680 per ton (SMU index HRC average). Lead times peaked the first week in December on all flat rolled with the exception of Galvalume. From mid-December 2013 until the middle of […]
The vast majority of our SMU steel survey respondents reported the domestic steel mills as willing to negotiate flat rolled steel prices this week. Those reporting the mills as willing to negotiate hot rolled prices increase by 2 percent to 70 percent of the respondents. Cold rolled jumped by an even greater margin from 52 […]
Manufacturing activity in the Philadelphia area took a huge jump in November. The headline Index for the Philadelphia Manufacturing Business Outlook survey gained more than 20 points, rising from 20.7 in October to 40.8 in November. The surge is surprising given economists expected a drop in the index to 18.5. The dramatic upswing was met […]
Industrial production and manufacturing capacity utilization, both of these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The IP Index was reported as 104.86 for October a decline of 0.11 percent from September. This is another example where the individual months result can be misleading. The three month moving average (3MMA) was […]
The latest Architecture Billings Index (ABI) slipped to 53.7 in October from 55.2 in September but shows continued strength in multi-family residential construction as well as growth for institutional construction projects. Demand for architectural design services was highest in the South and contracted sharply in the Northeast. The new projects inquiry index was 62.7, following a […]
The Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) reported flat rolled steel inventories earlier this week. Steel Market Update then reviews the data and incorporates the information into a proprietary model which assists us in determining whether inventories are short (deficit) or long (excess) based on what our model is telling us. When September ended we were […]
Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics, (BLS) puts out its series of producer price indexes, for thousands of goods and materials. The latest release on Tuesday reported October results. We run this analysis every three months to give readers an opportunity to become aware of any changes in the competitive position of steel against […]
Steel buyers in the October ISM Steel Buyers Survey are expecting general economic activity to remain unchanged for the next six months. When asked about the trend for sales and production during the six month period, seventy-five percent responded “the same.” A solid 91.7 percent of steel buyers said the trend for incoming orders will […]
Manufacturing activity in New York expanded at a faster pace in November, according to the Empire State Manufacturing Index, but missed analyst expectations. The Index rebounded to 10.2 from 6.17 in October but failed to reach the forecast reading of 12. The October and November readings are significantly lower than the May through September average […]
Barge volumes continue to be high on the US river system although rates have softened slightly, according to the latest MID-SHIP Report. Grain shipments this year are at the highest level since 2010 and are loading 45-50 seaborne vessels each week in the Gulf. As of the beginning of November, 83 percent of the soybean […]
WASHINGTON, DC –The Board of Directors of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) today elected three new members to its Board of Directors. Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources, Inc.; Roger K. Newport, Senior Vice President, Finance and CFO of AK Steel Corporation; and Conrad J. Winkler, President and CEO […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum continued its downward trend for the twelfth week in a row. MoMo, which is a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements […]
Congestion at California ports has prompted West Coast trucking associations to craft a petition to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association for temporary flexibility in the hours of service rules to alleviate problems. The American Trucking Association (ATA), California Trucking Association and Southern California Harbor Trucking Association want waiting time to not be counted as on-duty […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on non-farm employment indicated that 214,000 jobs were added in October, September and August were revised up by 8,000 and 23,000 respectively. The three month moving average, (3MMA) has declined for four straight months but this job recovery is stronger than was the case in the mid-2000s, (Figure […]
Explanation of data sources: The broad index is published by the Federal Reserve on both a daily and monthly basis. It is a weighted average of the foreign exchange values of the U.S. dollar against the currencies of a large group of major U.S. trading partners. The index weights, which change over time, are derived […]
Freight shipments, especially imports, are on the climb as the nation looks toward an economically stronger holiday season. The Cass Freight Index, which follows freight expenditures and shipment volumes, showed shipments increased in October by 3.3 percent year over year but fell 0.9 percent on a monthly basis. The slide, says Cass Information Systems, is […]
Occasionally we publish a piece on the state of the Eurozone because we regard the inevitable future transformation (disintegration) of this region to be of immense significance to the US steel industry. The following was written by Ambrose Evans Pritchard and published in the UK Daily Telegraph on Monday November 10th. Mario Draghi’s Efforts to […]
If we start with the premise that the consumer is almost 70 percent of GDP and that steel consumption is closely correlated with GDP, then consumer behavior and, in particular, debt is very relevant to our future businesses. Consumer spending is driven by income and both the perception of current debt and willingness to take […]
One of the items Steel Market Update is watching closely is steel mill lead times. This is especially true after price increases have been announced. Typically, we see lead times move out (extend) after a price announcement has been made. This is due to the rush to get orders quoted prior to the increase announcement […]
Based on the responses from last week’s Steel Market Update survey of the flat rolled steel market, buyers and sellers of steel reported the domestic steel mills as less willing to negotiate steel prices than what we saw during the middle of October. However, even though the percentages were smaller, the majority of buyers and […]
In the first nine months of 2014, scrap exports totaled 11,586,000 tonnes, down by 19.4 percent from the same period in 2013. In the single month of September exports were 1,163,489 tonnes, this was the second lowest month of the year following August which was the highest month. That’s why, in most cases, SMU uses […]
The Association of American Railroads reported 305,389 carloads for the week ending Nov 1, 2014, up 4.3 percent year over. Intermodal volume increased 5.9 percent y/y to 279,819 units for the highest volume ever. “America’s railroads are moving an enormous amount of freight today,” said AAR Senior Vice President John T. Gray. “In the first […]
The Truth About Selling Steel is a series of articles written by John Packard (with help from some of his friends), founder and publisher of Steel Market Update. You can find a number of the previous articles about the sales process under the resources tab in our website. Steel Market Update is in the middle […]
It may be a different day but buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are still singing the same optimistic song regarding their company’s chances of being successful in the current (and future) steel environment. Steel Market Update has been conducting our early November flat rolled steel market survey all week and this afternoon we […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our early November flat rolled steel market survey this week. We invited approximately 600 companies to participate in the process. Of those participating 44 percent were manufacturing companies and 44 percent were steel service centers. The balance of the respondents was comprised of 6 percent trading companies, 5 percent steel […]
The trucking industry’s top concerns were recently highlighted in an October 2014 survey by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). The ATRI report was based on the responses of 1,444 industry drivers, carriers and suppliers. Results show that Hours of Service (HOS) followed by Driver Shortage and Compliance, and Safety and Accountability (CSA) remain the […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum continued its downward trend for the eleventh week in a row. MoMo, which is a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements […]