Twice per month, Steel Market Update (SMU) conducts a review of the flat rolled steel market in our quest to better understand market trends which affect steel pricing and purchasing. We invite approximately 550-600 steel people to participate in our questionnaires. Those invited come from the manufacturing segment of the industry (approximately 45 to 50 […]
The SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index has been showing signs of a rebound as our Current Index is being released as +63 this week. This is a +2 point improvement from the middle of August and +5 point improvement since the beginning of August. However, SMU prefers to look at our Current and Future Sentiment […]
The following information comes from our flat rolled steel market trends survey which began last Friday and concluded earlier today. Do not confuse our survey results with actual lead time sheets produced by individual steel mill locations. Based on what our respondents shared with SMU, lead times on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume […]
With lead times shrinking on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels it would be normal to collect data suggesting the domestic steel mills are becoming more negotiable on the spot pricing. The following information was gathered through our flat rolled steel market trends analysis over the past six days. We found that the […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States dropped this week for the eighth consecutive week, following a 28 week long positive streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous 12-week average price […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States remained negative this week for the seventh consecutive week, following a 28 week long positive streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous 12-week average […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. This will explain the difference between our view of the present situation which is subjective and our analysis of trends which is based on the latest facts available. At the end of […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States remained negative this week for the sixth consecutive week, following a 28 week long positive streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous 12-week average […]
The following article is normally shared with just our Premium level members. Steel Market Update (SMU) has a proprietary product whereby we analyze the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI) carbon flat rolled shipments and inventories at the end of each month. Based on our model, we come up with a number indicating whether service center […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our mid-August flat rolled steel market trends analysis. For those new to our newsletter, we invite approximately 600 people representing about 550 companies to participate in our bi-monthly questionnaire. Our normal response rate is 100 to 150 people. Last week’s mix was 44 percent service centers, 43 percent manufacturing […]
The following Steel Buyers Basics article was originally written by Mario Briccetti, CEO of Briccetti and Associates and an instructor for Steel Market Update (Steel 101 & Custom Training). If you would like to learn more on this subject Mr. Briccetti will be at our Steel Summit Conference on the 29th through the 31st of […]
SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index Twice per month, Steel Market Update surveys the flat rolled steel industry. One of the proprietary products which is derived from that expansive survey is the SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index. Sentiment is defined as how buyers and sellers feel about their company’s ability to be successful both in the […]
In our last issue of Steel Market Update we wrote about lead times shrinking as being one of the reasons why we adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator. We cited published lead times by NLMK USA and Nucor Berkeley as examples of the changes we were seeing and discussing with steel buyers. This week we conducted […]
Based on the results of our flat rolled steel market trends survey that Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted all week, steel mills are receptive to negotiate steel prices on some products and less so on others. We are seeing the mills being fairly aggressive on hot rolled price negotiations with 83 percent of our survey […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States remained negative this week for the fifth consecutive week, following a 28 week long positive streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous 12-week average […]
For the past nine weeks, Steel Market Update (SMU) has had our Price Momentum Indicator at Neutral. A neutral rating means the market is either in transition or does not have enough momentum to push steel prices in one direction or another. Earlier today SMU adjusted our indicator to “Lower” from Neutral which is a […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States remained negative this week for the fourth consecutive week, following a 28 week long positive streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous 12-week average […]
According to the results of our latest flat rolled steel market trends analysis survey, as steel prices flatten out and lead times begin to come back in, flat rolled steel buyers and sellers are slightly less enthusiastic about their company’s ability to be successful in both the existing market environment as well as 3 to […]
Earlier this week we began our early August flat rolled steel market trends analysis. The process began with invitations going out to approximately 570 steel executives in the manufacturing, service center/wholesaler, trading company, steel mill and toll processing communities. The invitations are purposely heavily weighted toward manufacturing and service center/wholesalers as those two segments purchase […]
The following information was collected from our flat rolled steel market trends survey which we have been conducting since Monday of this week. Much of the collection information is similar to the Lead Times article above as this question is posed to manufacturing companies and distributors. What we are trying to discover is if there […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States remained negative this week for the third consecutive week, following a 28 week long positive streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous 12-week average […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. It is important to understand the difference between our view of the present situation which is subjective and our analysis of trends which is based on the latest facts available. The total […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States remained negative this week for the second week in a row, following a 28 week long positive streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous […]
We pointed out a couple of weeks back that lead times have been slowly shrinking but are still longer than year ago levels. Lead times refer to the amount of time it takes to get an order placed today produced at one of the domestic steel mills. The steel mill lead times we are discussing […]
As lead times begin to come back in (shorten), we are seeing an increase in the percentage of our flat rolled steel survey respondents who are reporting the steel mills as willing to negotiate steel prices. Hot rolled continues to be the weakest product. It has the shortest lead time and we have heard from […]
Since 2008, Steel Market Update has been measuring how steel buyers and sellers feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the existing market environment (which we call “Current Sentiment”). We also probe the same group of manufacturers, steel service centers, steel mills, trading companies and toll processors on how they feel about their […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States turned negative this week, following a 28 week positive streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous 12-week average price as a percentage. A positive […]
The Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Index (MoMo) for hot rolled steel in the United States remained positive for the 28th consecutive week, following a 21 week negative streak. MoMo is a trailing indicator and shows the relationship between the current U.S. hot rolled coil price movements against the previous 12-week average price as a […]
Flat rolled steel industry participants continue to be optimistic about the markets, according to the recent flat rolled market trends analysis conducted by Steel Market Update. However, we are seeing a slightly less optimistic trend for this time of year compared to what we were reporting at the same point in time in 2014 and […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are not believers that the next move will be for higher flat rolled steel prices over the next couple of months. At least that is what the respondents to our most recent flat rolled steel questionnaire believe. Based on the analysis of last week’s survey, 60 percent of […]