Written by: Sandy Williams Buyers bought less new homes in December but overall sales were the best since 2009. New home sales dropped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 369,000—7.3 percent below the revised November rate of 398,000, but 8.8 percent above the December 2011 estimate of 339,000, according to data released by the […]
This week, the SMU Fair Value HRC (hot rolled coil) Model has spot HRC pricing below Fair Value for the second week in a row after nine consecutive weeks of higher HRC prices. This is due to the SMU average spot HRC index decreasing $10 per ton to $610 per ton and scrap inputs remaining […]
With the exception of Steel Orbis (which if you haven’t noticed tends to take few positions on a weekly basis) and SteelBenchmarker who did not produce new numbers this past week, CRU and SMU both dropped HRC price assessments by double digits by the middle of the week. By the end of the week, Platts […]
Based on the most recent data released by the Department of Commerce projects 2012 total steel imports to be 33,347,611 net tons – this represents an increase of just shy 17 percent versus the 28,515,247 net tons imported into the U.S. during 2011. Galvanized tonnage was up by 36 percent, Galvalume by 22 percent, cold […]
December Imports Down 15% Imports dropped by 377,746 net tons compared to the prior month. On a day’s adjusted basis December imports were 15 percent lower than November. Based on preliminary license data January imports are projected to be approximately 2.9 million net tons – well above both the 3-month and 12-month moving average. Semi-finished […]
Written by: Sandy Williams New construction starts leapt 23 percent in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $530 billion according to data released by McGraw-Hill Construction. Total constructions starts for 2012 grew 6 percent to $463.6 billion for a moderate gain at a faster rate from the previous two years. Construction growth overall […]
A quick reminder that our Steel 101 workshop registration is open – details about our program, our instructors, and the tour of Severstal Columbus which is part of the program and discount details for SMU member companies are on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com – or you are welcome to contact our office with any questions you […]
Written by: Sandy Williams ArcelorMittal is permanently closing six finishing lines and a coke plant at its Liege facility in Belgium. A seventh line will be maintained only as a repairing line. The company announced in October 2011 that it would permanently idle its liquid phase at Liege due to over-capacity in Northern Europe. Liege […]
Written by: Sandy Williams ILVA Steel executive Fabio Riva, was arrested on Tuesday after turning himself over to British authorities. The arrest was based on a European warrant alleging failure to take precautions against work accidents, corruption of judicial acts, poisoning water or food and making false declarations according to Scotland Yard. Riva is a […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Too many mills and too little demand portend a poor year for the steel industry according to the latest Ernst & Young Global Steel Report. The biggest threat to the steel industry is excess capacity, not excess production, according to Mike Elliott, Ernst & Young Global Mining and Metals Leader. Although […]
Based on our survey results from this past week, SMU found service center inventories have declined slightly from where they were at the beginning of January. Each service center is treated equally in our survey – we do not weigh the survey due to size. As of last week our average was 2.29 months worth […]
The issue of excessive discounting against CRU and other index-based issues raised by ArcelorMittal in their price increase announcement are ones which Steel Market Update has been researching and which we began raising in our last steel market survey. During conversations with service centers, steel mills and end users we were catching frustrations with the […]
Written by: Sandy Williams The Architecture Billings Index showed growth for the fifth straight month in December. The American Institute of Architects reported the ABI score at 52, down slightly from 53.2 in November. The ABI reflects the approximate nine to twelve month lag time between architecture billings and construction spending. The score reflects an […]
Utilizing a trailing average hot rolled coil (HRC) price, the SMU Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained below zero percent this week for the second week after eight consecutive weeks of positive momentum readings. MoMo is based upon the current hot rolled coil price weighed against the previous 12 week […]
Written by: Sandy Williams World Steel Association figures showed an increase of 1.2 percent in world crude steel output for 2012 at 1.5 billion tonnes (metric tons). Most of that increase came from China which accounted for 46.3 percent of total world output leaving production by the rest of the world relatively flat. Steel output […]
Written by: Andre Marshall, Crunchrisk Financial Markets The last of the obstacles to an improving economy, the debt ceiling and the spending cuts etc seem to be rolling over. The Republicans have cleverly put in a temporary debt ceiling increase covering us until May which will be after the budget talks in April and the […]
U.S. Steel verbally began telling their U.S. customers of their intention of raising spot flat rolled prices by $50 per ton. Price increase letters were sent to their customers by Nucor and NLMK USA as they advised their customers of their intention of raising flat rolled spot prices by a minimum of $50 per ton. […]
ArcelorMittal raised flat rolled spot prices on Wednesday and in the process took a shot at the rest of the industry (and perhaps themselves?) when they identified, “The market manipulation and discounting of the CRU has had a dampening effect on industry spot prices.” They then used the most recent index benchmark plus $45 to […]
AK Steel came out with a price announcement – no surprises here. We knew they were positioning themselves to announce. The big question will be with earnings season upon us will the other mills take up the call for increases – or be satisfied with the status quo. The betting money is on the […]
Esmark Inc., Stahlschmidt Inc. and Bouchard Group LLC have announced the joint acquisition of Esmark Technologies. Esmark Technologies will provide technical management services across the steel, manufacturing and industrial sectors and will be based in Cleveland Ohio. Esmark Inc., founded by Chairman and CEO James Bouchard, has strong roots in the steel industry. Current interests […]
Existing home sales slowed slightly in December but limited inventory is fueling price increases, according to the National Association of Realtors. December sales declined 1.0 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.94 million in December from a downwardly revised 4.99 million in November, but are 12.8 percent above the 4.38 million-unit level in […]
A tropical storm shut down ports in Australia on Tuesday stopping shipment of nearly half of the world’s iron ore trade. Port Hedland, Dampier and Cape Lambert shut down operations as vessels moved out to sea and away from the area. The ports service the mines Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals Group and Atlas […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their estimated raw steel production data for the week ending January 19, 2013. According to AISI estimates the U.S. steel industry produced 1,824,000 net tons of raw steel last week. This represents an increase of 0.3 percent compared to the week earlier but is 4.9 percent lower […]
ThyssenKrupp AG held its annual meeting Friday and was attended by thousands of shareholders who were angry at the past year’s failures and anxious to hear what solutions management could offer. Supervisory Board Chairman Gerhard Cromme faced intense pressure from some shareholders to resign over the Steel Americas debacle but held his ground. “If you […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) participates in a monthly conference call with HARDI wholesalers who sell galvanized sheet and coil into the HVAC mechanical contractors and related industries for residential and commercial construction applications. The purpose of the call is to discuss steel trends which may impact their regional businesses – this includes domestic mill and […]
An overwhelmingly majority of manufacturers reported service center spot prices as “stable” according to the results of our survey conducted this past week. A full 85 percent of those manufacturing respondents taking our mid-January survey reported no change in spot prices from their service center suppliers. This is an increase of 18 percent compared to […]
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 […]
As was reported over the past week, Steel Market Update found a number of buyers of varying sizes able to purchase hot rolled coil below $600 in the spot market. We did not find every mill or every region participating in the erosion of the bottom end of our range. What we found is the […]
As Steel Market Update (SMU) checked with various market sources after the AK Steel price announcement we found most of the industry expecting the other domestic steel mills to follow the AK Steel pricing lead. At the same time, most buyers expect the net result to be an end to the current slide in pricing […]
On Monday, January 23rd, AK Steel announced a price increase on all flat rolled steel products of $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt). The price increase is for “spot” orders only and is “effective immediately” according to the press release issued by the company. This is the first price announcement so far during the 2013 calendar year. […]