By Sandy Williams Olympic Steel reported net income of $2.5 million in the second quarter of 2013, down from $4.5 million in the same period 2012. Net income for the first half was $7.7 million compared with $10.8 million in the first half last year. Total net sales were $330.8 million, down 10 percent from […]
By Sandy Williams Russel Metals reported second quarter earnings of $20 million on sales of $758 million, as compared to $23 million on sales of $719 millions in 2012. Revenues dropped 13 percent in the metals service center segment and 29 percent in the steel distributors segment due to lower demand levels and pricing. Energy […]
Economy Moving in Right Direction but Not Firing on All Cylinders WASHINGTON, D.C. – August 8, 2013 – The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported that total U.S. rail traffic was mixed for July 2013, with intermodal setting a new July record for average weekly volume and carload volume decreasing slightly overall compared with July […]
By John Packard Steel Market Update wants to welcome our newest member to our team: Ryan Packard. Ryan is joining us after completion of his Masters at McGill and moving to Chicago. I don’t expect my son to take over the company anytime soon as his expertise is as a percussionist and Chicago is where […]
By Brett Linton According to Baker Hughes data from August 9th, 2013, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,778 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This number represents a decrease of 4 rigs compared to last week, with oil rigs down 3 to 1,385 rigs, gas rigs down 2 to […]
Written by: Diana Packard Utilizing a trailing average hot rolled coil (HRC) price, the SMU Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained above zero percent this week for the 10th week after 20 consecutive weeks of negative momentum readings. MoMo is based upon the current hot rolled coil price weighed against […]
Written by: John Packard and the American Institute for International Steel (AIIS) The U.S. Department of Commerce released June export data on Tuesday evening. We have two analyses of the data. First, we are reproducing the AIIS press release and then after their release we have our quick analysis of hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized […]
Written by: Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals TSI Iron Ore: Prices Up, Up and Away… Iron Ore over the past few weeks remains a true bright spot in the commodities complex as stronger than expected summer steel demand in China has driven prices to highs not seen in months and monthly shipments […]
Imports of semi finished, and hot worked steel imports through July 2013 Imports of the combined tonnage of billets, blooms and slabs have been trending down for 12 months as have also the combined imports plate and sheet. Total long products have been trending up for all of 2013. These conclusions are based on a […]
Written by: John Packard In what might be perceived to be a positive for the domestic steel industry, the steel buyers and sellers responding to the latest SMU steel market survey believe the domestic mills have at least 30 days if not longer before the current price cycle is broken. We asked those responding to […]
We have 5 spots left open in our next Steel 101 workshop which will be held in Blytheville, Arkansas on October 8th and 9th. The workshop includes a tour of the Nucor Hickman EAF and rolling mill. Information about the workshop is on our website or you are welcome to contact our office: 800-432-3475. We […]
Every so often it is interesting to just review the comments made to Steel Market Update (SMU) during our steel market survey. Occasionally we can catch a raw gem. In the comment below a large Midwest based service center discusses their service center spot business (supplying steel from one service center to another): “Lean […]
Written by Sandy Williams Kloeckner & Co. SE reported disappointing results for the first half of 2013 but said its restructuring plan is working. The company’s restructuring effort has resulted in the sale of 60 locations in Eastern Europe and a reduction of 1800 workers. Further reductions in France and the USA will bring the […]
Written by: Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals The HRC futures market has been exceptionally quiet over the past few weeks with almost no volume trading as the recent price hikes, uncertainty of pricing going forward and middling futures pricing has led most traders to sit on the sidelines awaiting the next price […]
Written by Sandy Williams Canadian building permit values were down 10.3 percent from May at a value of $6.6 billion (CAD), dropping for the first time in six months. Canadian building permit values for residential housing dropped in June following three consecutive months of increases. Both multi and single family dwelling permits experienced declines, […]
Written by: John Packard Service centers continue to raise spot flat rolled prices to their end customers, according to our most recent steel market survey. Seventy seven (77) percent of the service centers responding to our early August questionnaire advised their company as raising prices compared to two weeks ago. The remaining distributors reported keeping […]
SMU doesn’t normally publish obituaries. I found the one about Berthod Beitz former Chairman of Krupp Steel especially touching and important to acknowledge. For the younger generation the idea of death camps and the world at war must be quite foreign. Even those of us born after World War II have only faded memories of […]
Written by Sandy Williams German industrialist, Berthold Beitz, the “grand old man of steel,” died on July 30 at 99 years of age. Beitz turned the privately run Krupp Steel company into a publically traded corporation that is now ThyssenKrupp Steel, but he is also credited for saving hundreds of Jews during World War II. […]
Written by: Peter Wright Once a quarter the Federal Reserve surveys the senior loan officers of 73 domestic banks and 22 U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks – questions cover changes in the standards and terms of the banks’ lending and the state of business and household demand for loans. The following is an […]
Written by: Diana Packard For the week ending August 3, 2013, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,888,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.9 percent increase over the previous week and a 1.8 increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Participants in the July ISM Steel Buyers Survey reported lean inventories and lower than desired orders for July. Buyers reported tons on hand covered shipping levels for 2 months or less. Inventory levels were considered Right by 77.8 percent of those surveyed and Too High by 37.2 percent with plans to […]
Written by Sandy Williams The Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) has asked U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman to protect domestic steel plate from an onslaught of imports from Europe. “We urge USTR to undertake a diplomatic initiative targeted at the European countries that are rapidly increasing their shipments of CTL plate and other products to the […]
Written by: John Packard Chicago area scrap deals were lower on shred and basically sideways on #1 HMS and #1 Busheling according to SMU sources as of today. #1 heavy melt was put at $351-$355 per gross ton. Shredded Scrap was put at $366 per gross ton. #1 Busheling was reported to be sideways […]
Written by: John Packard SMU thought our readers might be interested in what the domestic mills are “publishing” as lead times as of Monday of this week for new orders placed at that time. We have a number of mill lead times for you to review. AK Steel has informed their customers that their Middletown […]
Written by: John Packard Are we seeing early signs of prices weakening? The combination of our survey, which began on Thursday of last week and concluded earlier today, and our channel checks with both manufacturing and distributors produced a wider range in pricing than we had been seeing in recent weeks. Is this the beginning […]
Written by: John Packard Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index was measured at +38 based on the results of our mid-August review of the flat rolled steel market. Sentiment continues to be at the peak of optimism displayed during calendar year 2013. Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to respond in […]
Written by: John Packard Bucket Deals are Killing Regional Wholesalers and Small Distributors Somewhere along the line the idea of allowing flexible tonnage purchases on month to month tonnages originally pegged for spot purchases to go into “bucket deals” has been killing some of the smaller spot distributors and wholesalers. The worst time is now […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) watches a number of steel indexes and their weekly price movements on various flat rolled products. Since the May 22nd price increase announcement by U.S. Steel the indexes have been capturing a steady increase in pricing. The spread on benchmark hot rolled has narrowed with all but SteelBenchmarker being within $5.50/per […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and The Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a forecast to the HARDI members located in the United […]
One of our scrap sources – a Northeast based shredding company – reported sales to one of the mill scrap brokerage companies with two sales on shredded scrap. One 35,000 ton lot at down $20 per gross ton shipping by rail, a second lot of shred sold down $15 per gross ton to ship by […]