Steel buyers in the September ISM Steel Buyers Survey are expecting general economic activity to be flat over the next six months. Respondents were split at 45.5 percent on whether the the trend for sales and production would go up or remain static. Tons on hand would cover shipping levels for 0-1 month for 36.4 […]
The following article was written by John Packard, founder and publisher of Steel Market Update and an active steel salesperson for 31 years within the flat rolled steel industry. Packard’s experiences include 20 years of service center sales and management experience, 10 years of domestic steel mill sales experience (as an agent) and 6 years […]
Our Price Momentum Indicator has been stuck in “Neutral” since the last day of June 2014. We are now entering our 4th month and hot rolled steel prices have barely budged from the center line (OK, there have been some mild gyrations but no clear cut path up or down during the past three months). […]
One of the first things that we noticed when looking at the graph below is all of the “neutral” arrows (yellow arrows in SMU Pricing Momentum) going across the full spectrum of the table shown. We went back to see at what point did we move our Momentum to Neutral and found we made the […]
Manufacturing activity grew for the 16th consecutive month but slowed to a PMI reading of 56.6 in September’s Manufacturing ISM Report on Business. While economists were expecting a smaller drop of 58.2 to 58.5 from last month’s reading of 59.0, U.S. manufacturing is still holding strong. “The September PMI registered 56.6 percent, a decrease of […]
Global manufacturing growth slowed in September. The JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI eased to a 4-month of 52.2 maintaining the general rate of expansion seen throughout 2014. Meaningful growth was mostly limited to the U.S., however, along with improvements in Czech Republic, Ireland, Taiwan and Canada. Growth was stagnant in most of the rest of […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. showed hot rolled coil price momentum falling this week for the sixth week in a row after being in positive territory for the previous four weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the […]
The Consumer Confidence Index as reported by the Conference Board declined sharply in September, particularly in the expectations component. The composite fell from 93.4 to 86.0, the view of the present situation fell from 93.9 to 89.4 as expectations declined from 93.1 to 83.7. In closer examination, it looks as though the August view of […]
The Canadian economy was flat in July following six months of gains according to data released by Statistics Canada on Sept. 30, 2014. GDP growth was unchanged, failing to meet economist forecasts of 0.2 to 0.3 percent growth. Manufacturing output grew by 1 percent. Durable goods rose 1.6 percent with notable increases in transportation equipment, […]
The Chicago Business Barometer fell 3.8 points to 60.5 in September. The headline index in the report by MNI Indicators was lower than economist predictions of 62.0 report but well above the neutral 50 reading. The average Barometer reading for third quarter was 59.1, indicating a healthy growth for the economy. Production and new orders […]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the third estimate of Q2 2014 Annual Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts last Friday. The annualized growth rate was revised up from 3.95 percent in the first estimate to 4.17 percent in the second estimate to 4.59 percent in this the third estimate. GDP is […]
Armada Executive Intelligence released its monthly trends report that focuses on economic issues that are likely to have short and long term impact on business. The following is a summary of the important issues to watch in the coming months and year. Trend 1: U.S. Dollar Strengthening Banks around the world are taking their cue […]
Durable goods orders in August fell back to the long term trend line after the huge surge in July, continuing the healthy trend that has existed since the recession (Figure 1). The three month moving average (3MMA) increased for the sixth straight month (Figure 2). The year over year growth rate of the 3MMA grew […]
The American Institute of Architects (AIA) released their Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score for the month of August on Wednesday this week, reporting that the latest index declined slightly after reaching last month’s seven-year high. The ABI score for August was 53.0, down 2.8 points from July’s score of 55.8. Note that the index is […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. showed hot rolled coil prices as falling this week for the fifth week in a row after being in positive territory for the previous four weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of August 2014, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in August were 74,880,000 metric tons, a decrease of 9.3 percent from the previous month but an increase of 8.5 percent […]
The following article was originally published in our Premium edition of Steel Market Update last week after the MSCI shipment and inventory data was released. Service Center Apparent Inventory Deficit/Excess is one of the proprietary products available for our Premium Level customers. We thought our Executive customers might be interested in how our forecast did […]
Based on the results from our most recent Steel Market Update steel market analysis, flat rolled steel mill lead times, the number of weeks needed to produce and ship a new order, remained above 2013 levels on all products. SMU conducted one of our twice monthly steel market surveys this past week. During the process […]
Flat rolled steel mills continue to negotiate pricing on hot rolled, galvanized and Galvalume products and less enthusiastically on cold rolled, according to our latest flat rolled steel market analysis conducted this past week. Galvanized continued as the product manufacturing companies and service centers were reporting where prices were negotiable gathering 68 percent of the […]
The following is part of a series of articles Steel Market Update has been producing on the subject of steel sales. The series is called: The Truth About Selling Steel and today, with the help of John Temples, we are going to introduce communication and engagement. In the coming weeks we will expand upon our […]
The September Precision Metalforming Association (PMA) Business Conditions Report reveals that metalforming companies are less optimistic about the business conditions for the next three months. The number of participants expecting economic activity to decline doubled to 14 percent from 7 percent last month, 51 percent expect no change (down from 53 percent) and 35 percent […]
The following articles are for our Premium level customers. Thank you again for your business. We also want you to know that the latest imports by product, port and country are in the website (must be logged in as Premium customer in order to access the data) as is our latest Survey data which was […]
Steel Market Update nailed (in our opinion) last month’s forecast for August. We projected that the -193,000 tons deficit from the end of July (based on our proprietary formula for what a balanced flat rolled inventory level should be for the U.S. service centers) would be eliminated and move into a very small excess situation. […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are becoming more optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful based on current market conditions according to Steel Market Update and their Steel Buyers Sentiment Index. SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index rose to +64 or +11 points higher than where it was measured during the beginning of […]
The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey registered a drop of 5.5 points to 22.5 in September after recording its highest reading since March 2011 at 28.0 in August. Orders and shipments increased by 1 and 5 points, respectively, while indexes for unfilled orders and delivery times were positive for the month. Input prices were […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained negative this week for the fourth week in a row after being in positive territory for the previous four weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) […]
Spot prices remained stable this week as steel buyers wait to see how the absorption of Severstal by AK Steel and Steel Dynamics will affect the marketplace. It is anticipated that it could take 3-4 weeks before we get a clear indication as to how the commercial departments for each mill will integrate the former […]
Industrial production (IP) and manufacturing capacity utilization for August 2014: Both of these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The IP index was reported as 104.12 for August, a decline of 0.1 percent from July. This is another example where the individual month’s result can be misleading. The three month […]
Manufacturing activity in New York in September was at its highest level since late 2009. The general business conditions index rose 13 points to 27.5 according to the survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The new orders index rose three points to 16.9 while the shipments index advanced two points to 27.1—both […]
At least once per month, Steel Market Update produces an update on the various currencies associated with steel trading nations. The following information is as of late last week and was produced by SMU contributing writer Peter Wright. Explanation of data sources: The broad index is published by the Federal Reserve on both a daily […]