I remember one time I became so irate with a customer that I literally was standing on my desk and screaming at him on the phone. It may have made me feel better for a couple of minutes but it didn’t do much to enhance the customer’s experience with the company I represented. Nor did […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are less optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market conditions than what we saw just two weeks ago. The buyers and sellers who participated in this week’s flat rolled steel market analysis reported concerns regarding falling steel prices, bloated inventories and shrinking margins. […]
Flat rolled steel mills saw their lead times shorten according to the buyers and sellers of steel responding to this week’s market analysis. Weakening lead times are one of the keys which is impacting flat rolled and scrap prices – both down big over the past few weeks. Hot rolled lead times average 2.79 weeks, […]
It doesn’t get any clearer than this. Based on the results of the respondents to this week’s flat rolled market questionnaire, the domestic steel mills are willing to negotiate pricing on all flat rolled products: hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume (zinc-aluminum). Hot rolled came in with 95 percent of our respondents reporting the […]
Earlier this week Steel Market Update suggested that perhaps we are getting close to that time when it is necessary to have a dialogue/debate as to when and at what level will flat rolled steel prices bottom. As of Tuesday of this week, Steel Market Update range for benchmark hot rolled coil was $520 to […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum continued its downward trend for the 24th week in a row. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the […]
SMU Price Momentum Indicator has been stuck pointing lower for a number of months, ended the month of January as it did at the end of November and December. We saw SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index improve by +1 point in January over the month of December. However, when looking at Sentiment based on a […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum continued its downward trend for the 23rd week in a row and is at the lowest level recorded since May 2011. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of […]
One of the questions asked during last week’s Steel Market Update (SMU) flat rolled steel market survey was, where do you think benchmark hot rolled prices will bottom in the current cycle? Last week HRC average was $570 per ton (survey began before our index average adjusted to $560 per ton). The responses ranged from […]
The following article is part of our “Truth About Selling Steel” series and was written by John Packard, Founder and Publisher of Steel Market Update. Prior to founding SMU Packard sold flat rolled steel for 31 years: When I look back at my 31 year career selling flat rolled steel around North and South America, […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to be optimistic about their company’s chances of being successful in both the current market conditions as well as three to six months into the future. However, there have been some clouds building as our 3MMA has been trending lower over the past four months. We have […]
According to the respondents to this week’s flat rolled steel market survey, the domestic steel mills are willing to negotiate prices on new orders for all flat rolled steel products. As you can see by the graphic below, ever since the beginning of the 4th Quarter 2014 the domestic steel mills have been willing to […]
Domestic flat rolled steel mill lead times continued to shrink based on the responses received in our most recent steel market survey. Steel Market Update conducted our mid-January flat rolled steel market analysis this week. We invited over 600 companies to participate in the survey and, based on the average of the responses received, lead […]
Steel Market Update nailed (for lack of a better term…) our service center apparent excess shipment forecast which we provided to our Premium level members this past month. Based on an expectation that flat rolled carbon steel shipments would be up by 2 percent over total shipments for December 2013, we predicted shipments would be […]
Timing, determination and a compelling story are critical when it comes to developing new business. As anyone who has ever made a cold call to a new prospect knows, in this age of voice mail and email messaging it can be very difficult to get past the electronic gatekeepers who have replaced, in many cases, […]
The following article is a continuation of our Steel Buyers Basics series written by Mario Briccetti. Mario is Principal of Briccetti & Associates, a Supply Chain consulting firm, and can be reached at Mario@mbriccetti.com. Briccetti wrote the following article as part of our Steel Buyers Basics series of articles, many of which can be found […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum continued its downward trend for the 21st week in a row and is at the lowest level recorded since mid-October 2012. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of […]
The first measurement of our Steel Buyers Sentiment Index in the New Year provided us some mixed results. Current Sentiment, which is how steel buyers and sellers feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment, was measured at +54. This is well within the optimistic range of our Index but […]
Domestic steel mill lead times continue to slide (shrink) on all flat rolled products with the exception of Galvalume. Based on the results of this weeks flat rolled steel market analysis, hot rolled lead times averaged 3.19 weeks, down one half a week compared to the beginning of December and one week shorter than what […]
The previous article about steel mill lead times being one week shorter than what we saw one year ago set the stage for what we are seeing when it comes to mill negotiations. Our survey respondents almost unanimously reported the domestic mills as willing to negotiate pricing on all flat rolled products. We had 97 […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum continued its downward trend for the 20th week in a row and is at the lowest level recorded since mid-March 2014. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of […]
The following is an overview of some of the key steel data collected by Steel Market Update during the month of December 2014. This is separate from our Key Market Indicators which was produced for our Premium level subscribers (although shared with all of our readers on Friday of this past week). Steel Market Update […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum continued its downward trend for the 19th week in a row. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against the […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers […]
The good news for the consumer is gasoline prices are closing in on $2.00 per gallon in many areas of the country. The bad news for the steel industry is the drop in oil prices means a slowdown in new drilling, one of the major users of hot rolled coil. The good news for buyers […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) released their Steel Buyers Sentiment Index this afternoon. Sentiment, which is a measure as to how buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel feel about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment, rose 4 points from the beginning of December and is now at +56. Positive (+) […]
What may be a disappointment to the domestic (U.S. and Canadian) steel mills is both manufacturing companies and service centers intend to buy more foreign steel during 2015 than they purchased during calendar year 2014. This is most disturbing when you consider that 2014 will go down as one of the biggest years in history […]
Steel Market Update conducted our last flat rolled steel market survey earlier today (Thursday, December 18th). During the survey process we asked some new questions in an effort to see what will be the new trending issues once we move into calendar year 2015. One of the questions posed to those who participated in our […]
Lead times at the domestic steel mills continue to be shorter than what we saw this time last year (when prices were rising). The average lead time for benchmark hot rolled coil dropped to an average of 3.53 weeks based on the results from this week’s SMU flat rolled steel market survey. As you can […]