The following article is written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our instructor for our Managing Price Risk and Managing Price Risk 2: Strategies & Execution workshops. Financial Markets: Well we are a fairly precarious point in the S+P 500 and DOW. You might recall that we were headed to 1900 to test […]
Steel Market Update is aware that many buyers and sellers of steel have been keyed in on the variations between various flat rolled steel indexes. In the past, Steel Market Update found the spread between our steel index and those of Platts and CRU to generally be negligible ($1-$10 per ton at any one time). […]
This week was a tough one to figure out where transaction prices actually are at this moment in time. What makes it challenging is mill offers appear to be firm from mill to mill with very little wiggle room at this moment. The second issue making things tough to evaluate pricing is we had a […]
Scrap prices rose by varying amounts around the country. In Chicago and Detroit prices rose from $5 to $15 per ton depending on the product. Both areas were impacted by the reduction of production at USS Gary Works (Chicago) and Great Lakes (Detroit). Detroit was the first to settle at up $10 per gross ton […]
More flat rolled steel mills have joined in and raised flat rolled steel prices over the past couple of days. On Friday, April 4th USS/POSCO sent a letter to their customers advising them that flat rolled steel base prices would rise by $30 per ton ($1.50/cwt) on all products. UPI opened their June order book […]
Apparent steel supply for February was 9,002,702 net tons, an 8.5 percent increase compared to the same month one year ago. This is due to an increase in finished imports and domestic shipments but a decrease in total US exports. The net trade balance between imports and exports was a surplus of 2,381,742 net tons […]
The American Institute for International Steel reported “February 2014 showed mixed to disappointing results for U.S. steel exports.” The following report is from an AIIS press release regarding exports of steel out of the domestic (US) mills during the month of February. Key to the data is NAFTA exports which, according to the AIIS, represent […]
For the week ending March 29, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,762,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 3.2 percent decrease over the previous week and a 3.9 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 73.3 […]
On Friday morning, April 4th, Nucor became the first mill to announce a new wave of flat rolled steel price increases. In a letter to their customers, the Nucor Sheet Mill managers advised that effective immediately, minimum base prices would be as follows: Hot Rolled = $34.25/cwt ($685 per ton)Cold Rolled = $40.75/cwt ($815 per […]
Steel Market Update began this week with an article on Sunday evening titled, “This Could Be a Tumultuous Week.” Looking back over the past five days that title was an understatement. This week has been tumultuous times ten. Why? U.S. Steel can’t seem to catch a break. They now have steelmaking operations temporarily suspended at […]
All of the indexes followed by Steel Market Update saw their averages on hot rolled, cold rolled and coated rise this past week (except Platts which remained the same). We are seeing the indices moving higher very quickly as the domestic steel mills firm up their order books at the previously announced $660 level on […]
Total steel exports decreased 6.1 percent in February over January to 904,131 net tons (NT), below both the 3 and 12 month moving averages (MMA). Compared to the same month last year, total February exports were down 12.8 percent. Of the select products we follow at Steel Market Update, hot rolled exports showed the greatest […]
The following is a report which is normally provided to only our Premium Level members. It is a detailed analysis of flat rolled, long products and semi-finished imports through the month of March 2014. Written by Peter Wright, we analyze how accurate license data is and provide a table using three month moving averages to […]
The recent upturn in the physical market has continued to fuel the upswing in steel futures prices as nearby periods have surged this past week. The May and June HRC contracts have traded to highs of $660/ton while second half periods have traded up to $643. The nearby prices have improved over $40 during the […]
Today is the 3rd of April and negotiations between the steel mills and their scrap suppliers continue in earnest. We heard from one of our sources that Detroit has settled up $10 per gross ton. Our source reported #1 Heavy Melt (HMS) at $365-$370 per gross ton, shredded scrap at $395-$400 per gross ton and […]
As Steel Market Update has mentioned in the past we encourage and welcome all viewpoints on topics. A recent letter written by David Phelps, the retired president of the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS), entitled “Anti-Dumping Cases Threatened, Now What?” elicited the following response: “I appreciate the opportunity to comment on your April 1, […]
The spread between domestic (U.S.) hot rolled prices (FOB mill) and the world export hot rolled coil pricing rose this week to $146 per net ton after having shrunk to $115 last week. This jump represents a $31 per ton jump in the spread in one week (based on SMU numbers not Platts $655 number). […]
The US Department of Commerce released Final Census numbers for the month of February 2014. The 3,285,874 net tons was the highest level for imports since July 2007 when they were 3,288,054 NT. In the table below we have provided updated twelve month and three month moving averages through the month of February. The March […]
In an email sent late in the afternoon on Monday, March 17th, ArcelorMittal USA announced a price increase on all of their new flat rolled orders, with specific base prices at $33.00 for hot rolled, $39.50 for cold rolled, and $39.50 for galvanized. The mill justified their increase by stating “Despite the recent drop in […]
We have been hearing of a very strong booking week at many of the domestic steel mills this past week. With the hot end of USS Great Lakes down and other flat rolled steel production issues within the domestic steel mill ranks, we have seen a tightening of flat rolled steel pricing. We have heard […]
Steel Market Update has been projecting 3.5 million tons of total steel products as the target number for the month of March based on US DOC license data. The license numbers were updated again today (April 1st) and we continue to believe we will be quite close to the 3.5 million ton mark when the […]
Steel Market Update has been well aware, and has reported on, the prospect of new trade cases being levied by the U.S. steel industry against imports of cold rolled and coated (galvanized & Galvalume) steels. There have been suggestions that the dumping suits could be filed within the month. So, we wanted to get the […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their final raw steel production numbers for the month of February 2014. This estimation is different than the weekly raw steel production as it is based on 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. 50 percent for the weekly estimates. Total raw steel production for the […]
March was the month that saw the bottom to the flat rolled steel pricing cycle and signs of the first bounce as prices began moving higher. We are finding our monthly analysis of pricing fascinating as many become consumed by the weekly numbers and forget the bigger picture. Weekly gyrations many times equal little change […]
For the week ending March 29, 2014, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,820,000 net tons (NT) of raw steel, a 3.4 percent decrease over the previous week and a 0.4 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated steel capacity utilization rate is […]
Imports of foreign steel increased during the month of February compared to the prior month. Steel Market Update carefully monitors total steel imports, slab imports, hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume imports as well as plate (coiled and sheet) and oil country tubular goods (OCTG). The U.S. Government recently released preliminary census data for […]
When markets start to move each steel index will pick up the information in different ways. It is important to understand each index methodology, how often the markets are canvassed and how deep the reporting resources are. CRU indices are based on actual verifiable transactions from both steel mills and buyers. Platts takes into consideration […]
Imports of foreign steel increased during the month of February compared to the prior month. Steel Market Update carefully monitors total steel imports, slab imports, hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume imports as well as plate (coiled and sheet) and oil country tubular goods (OCTG). The U.S. Government recently released preliminary census data for […]
We are beginning to see a new push away from a fragmented steel mill supply base as closures of capacity coupled with the recent acquisition of ThyssenKrupp Steel USA by ArcelorMittal/Nippon Steel Sumitomo Metals Corporation (AM/NS Calvert) are reducing the number of players and the tons in the game. Over the past two years we […]
With the expected steel price hikes finally coming to fruition the futures market has reacted strongly as offers were lifted and bids take a step up. After months of a down trending physical market sentiment has taken a clear turn to bullishness. The nearby months (March and April) traded to lows around $615 last week […]