House Subcommittee Presentations The American Iron and Steel Institute made its presence known last week on Capitol Hill. Top steel executives encouraged members of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade to remedy government policies on tax, energy, infrastructure, environment and trade to strengthen American jobs in steel and other manufacturing […]
Nucor pushes back at potential competitor Written by: Sandy Williams Arkansas lawmakers are still delving into the feasibility of offering Big River Steel a $125 million incentive package. IHS Global Analysis was hired by the State of Arkansas to provide a third-party review of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission (AEDC) cost-benefit analysis for the proposed […]
We had a mixed bag this past week as the CRU indices went higher while SMU and Platts moved lower. Stuck in the middle was Steel Orbis which didn’t do anything and SteelBenchmarker which did not report new numbers last week. The benchmark hot rolled index is in a fairly tight range from $610 (SMU/Steel […]
Industrial Production and Manufacturing Capacity Utilization – February 2013 Federal Reserve statistics for February 2013 indicate that manufacturing is in a “Warm” growth mode which confirms the Institute of Supply Management’s manufacturing index, orders for durable goods and the rate of growth of manufacturing employment. In three months through February IP grew 2.6% year over […]
Washington, D.C. – March 20, 2013 – With increasing demand for design services, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI) is continuing to strengthen. As a leading economic indicator of construction activity, the ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) reported the […]
U.S. Midwest #1 Busheling Ferrous Scrap (AMM) Prices Drop as an April Pullback Looks Likely After prices for March settled up $40+ the market for April already is starting to shape up significantly weaker. Dealers succeeded in pushing up prices last month but currently it looks like April will be down at least $20 t […]
Written by: Sandy Williams The JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI slipped to 50.8 from 51.4 in January indicating a slowing in manufacturing. Global manufacturing output rose for the fourth month in a row with the U.S. leading the upward momentum. India, Mexico and Brazil also saw acceleration in production. China showed slowing in February while […]
Written by: Sandy Williams General Motors nearly doubled its fourth quarter earnings while posting big losses in Europe. GM reported fourth quarter earnings of $898 million, up from $468 million in the same period in 2012 due in part to a variety of gains from special items. A number of one-time accounting gains and losses […]
Written by: Sandy Williams ThyssenKrupp announced it will reduce its European workforce by 2000 employees with a possible 1800 dismissals to follow. The reduction is part of its “Best in Class—reloaded” (BiC) optimization program aimed at saving $670 million by the next fiscal year and improving competitiveness in the European market. The program includes restructuring […]