What may be a disappointment to the domestic (U.S. and Canadian) steel mills is both manufacturing companies and service centers intend to buy more foreign steel during 2015 than they purchased during calendar year 2014. This is most disturbing when you consider that 2014 will go down as one of the biggest years in history […]
Steel Market Update conducted our last flat rolled steel market survey earlier today (Thursday, December 18th). During the survey process we asked some new questions in an effort to see what will be the new trending issues once we move into calendar year 2015. One of the questions posed to those who participated in our […]
Lead times at the domestic steel mills continue to be shorter than what we saw this time last year (when prices were rising). The average lead time for benchmark hot rolled coil dropped to an average of 3.53 weeks based on the results from this week’s SMU flat rolled steel market survey. As you can […]
U.S. and Canadian steel mills are more willing to negotiate this week than they were during the first week of December, according to the respondents of our latest SMU flat rolled steel market survey. We found 93 percent of the respondents to our survey reporting hot rolled mills as willing to negotiate hot rolled pricing. […]
Canadians are outraged by the “Buy America” rule applied to a ferry terminal overhaul on Canadian soil. Funding for updating the Prince Rupert Ferry Terminal in British Columbia, leased to the State of Alaska, is coming primarily from the Federal Highway Administration, which requires Buy America rules. In the restrictions published in tendering documents by […]
Last month, Steel Market Update forecast carbon flat rolled shipments out of the U.S. steel service centers would total 2,100,000 tons. Earlier this week the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) reported distributors shipped 2,051,600 tons. We over-forecast shipments by 48,400 tons. Our forecast was based on shipments being 4.0 percent higher than November 2013 and […]
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 17th week in a row. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the […]
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) released their Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score for the month of November on Wednesday this week, reporting that the latest index is at the lowest point in the last seven months. The ABI score for November was 50.9, down 2.8 points from October’s score of 53.7. Note that the […]
New York manufacturers reported a decline in general business conditions in the December Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The headline business conditions index fell to -3.6, a drop of 14 points and its first negative reading in two years. The new orders index slid 11 points to -2.0 while shipments dropped 11 points to -0.2. The […]
American Trucking Association applauded Congress “for the common sense fix to two unjustified provisions of the current hours-of-service restart rules in this year’s omnibus spending bill.” The Omnibus Appropriations bill, passed in a bi-partisan vote on Saturday evening, provides funding for the federal government including the Department of Transportation. An amendment to the bill temporarily […]
Both these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The IP index was reported as 106.66 for November an increase of 1.26 percent from October. The three month moving average (3MMA) was 105.75 which was the highest value ever and the sixth straight month where the growth of the 3MMA exceeded […]
The currency markets continue to be dominated by a strengthening dollar and a weakening of third world currencies in particular. Hyun Song Shin, who chief economist at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, gives a lot of thought to the implications of the current situation. In recent presentations at the Brookings Institution, Mr. Shin […]
The Dodge Momentum index rose 0.6 percent to 125.0 in November according to Dodge Data & Analytics. Dodge attributes the rise to greater planning activity in the commercial sector. Commercial planning rose 4 percent for the month, however, planning activity for the institutional sector fell 3.8 percent. “After retreating from July through September, the Momentum […]
Railroad traffic increased in November for both carload and intermodal volume. Class 1 freight railroads carried 1,161,820 carloads in November, up 1.4 percent year-over-year, according the American Association of Railroads. Intermodal traffic in increased by 2.7 percent with a weekly average volume of 258,765 containers and trailers for the month, the highest level in history […]
The supply of sheet products had strong positive growth in the 3 months period August through October year over year being up by 12.4 percent and led by hot band which was up by 16.1 percent (Table 1). The sources of this analysis are the Commerce Department trade statistics and AISI steel shipment data. These […]
In the first ten months of 2014, scrap exports totaled 12,905,000 metric tons, down by 17.6 percent from the same period in 2013. In the single month of October exports were 1,337,000 tons. Figure 1 shows that the three month moving average has been fairly consistent for the last six months through October and continued […]
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 16th week in a row. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the […]
I was advis ed today that Nucor had reduced their pricing on beams by $40 per ton in order to compete with foreign beam offers. The question then became what are the mills doing to blunt the impact of foreign steel offers of flat rolled products into the United States? As we reported on Tuesday, […]
For the past four days Steel Market Update (SMU) has been attending and speaking at the HARDI annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. One of the highlights of the conference were the presentations provided by Alan Beaulieu, one of the principal partners of the Institute for Trend Research (ITR) and the chief economist for HARDI. […]
Barge availability is still tight in the U.S. due to large cargo volumes of southbound grain, and northbound volumes of steel and salt, according to the Dec 4 MID-SHIP report. The US Department of Agriculture reports rates for southbound grain have dropped to 426 percent of tariff after reaching 800 percent or more in November. […]
Based on preliminary Chinese data, total steel exports from China were 9.7 million metric tons (10.7 million net tons) for the month of November, a 14 percent increase from the previous month and a 94 percent increase from November 2013 tonnage. This brings total 2014 exports to 83.6 million tons (92.2 million net tons). To […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on non-farm employment indicated that 321,000 jobs were added in November, October and September were revised up by a total of 44,000. The three month moving average (3MMA) of gains was the highest since May 2010 at 278,000. This job recovery is stronger than was the case in […]
Steel buyers in the November ISM Steel Buyers Survey are expecting general economic activity and sales and production to remain at current levels for the next six months. Eighty percent of buyers said general economic activity will remain the same while 90 percent expect the trend for sales and production in their industry to be […]
SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index came in at +52 this week. This is the same reading we got back in the middle of November 2014 The +52, which is within the optimistic range for our index, was 10 points less enthusiastic than what we measured at the beginning of November. One year ago our current […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our early December flat rolled steel market analysis this week. As part of the survey process, SMU asks those responding questions about flat rolled steel mill lead times. From their responses we create our average lead time for the industry by product. This allows us the ability to evaluate whether […]
Based strictly on the results from our Steel Market Update flat rolled market survey results, domestic steel mills are willing to negotiate prices on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume products. This is something that we see on a regular basis as lead times slip and the need for orders increases at the domestic […]
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 15th week in a row. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. The Chicago Fed Mid-West Manufacturing Index which was suspended earlier this year was expected to be re-instituted this month but […]
It has now been five weeks (October 28th) since AK Steel became the first domestic steel mill to announce a price increase on flat rolled steel. The relatively modest $20 per ton move was, in many steel buyers’ opinions, meant to stem the decline in steel prices. At that point in time benchmark hot rolled […]
The Institute of Supply Management released their November report on December 2nd and after the October surprise on the upside, the index slid back slightly from 59.0 to 58.7. However, this is still the third best result of the year. Any number >50 indicates expansion and this was the eighteenth straight month for which this […]