Housing starts in September increased to an annual rate of 1,017,000 units from 957,000 in August. The three month moving average (3MMA) increased from 988,000 to 1,024,000 units, (Figure 1). This was the first time since January that the 3MMA had exceeded a million units. The year over year growth rate of the 3MMA of […]
Light vehicle sales in the US declined in September to 16.4 million units from the blistering 17.5 million rate in August, both on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis. The spread between light trucks and autos increased to one million units in favor of light trucks. The third quarter pace was Ta very strong 16.8 million […]
Rail traffic has increased year-over-year indicating a “resurging economy,” said Edward Hamberger, President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads (AAR), in a speech to the Railway Tie Association. “An uptick in traffic spells great news for the overall economy and shows it’s headed in a positive direction,” Hamberger said. “We are finally experiencing […]
According to Baker Hughes data from October 17th 2014, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,918 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This count represents a decrease of 12 rigs compared to last week, with oil rigs down 19 to 1,590 rigs, gas rigs up 8 to 328 rigs, and […]
We have selected the hotel we will be using for our next Steel 101 workshop (January 20-21, 2014). The hotel will be the Charleston Harbor Resort & Marina and we have a great off-season rate. We should have more details on the hotel and have the reservations system set up by the middle of this […]
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 eighth week in a row. MoMo, which is a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements […]
Builder confidence fell five points to 54 in the October National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI). The decline follows four consecutive months of gains and a nine year high in September. The index for current sales conditions slipped six points to 57 while expectations for future sales inched down three points […]
Besides working on flat rolled steel pricing for most of the week, I have also been interviewing companies by email and over the phone to learn more about demand and how demand is holding up as we get deeper into 4th Quarter 2014. This becomes an even more important topic when considering rising inventories at […]
It was nice to see that US Steel was able to get a contract with their USW Local 1005 at Hamilton Works in Canada. Their contract was set to expire tomorrow (October 15th). For our Premium level members, we should have the Imports by Product, Port and Country for August on our website by sometime […]
Steel Market Update conducted our early October flat rolled steel market survey this past week and the results are available in a power point format for our Premium level members on our website. The power point is also shared with those who completed the survey. As with past surveys, SMU invited just over 600 people […]
Below is the latest data issued by the The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) regarding residential and commercial heating and cooling equipment shipments through August 2014. You may read the press release on their website here. Residential Storage Water Heaters U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters for August 2014 decreased 4.0 percent, […]
According to Baker Hughes data from October 10th 2014, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,930 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This count represents an increase of 8 rigs compared to last week, with oil rigs up 18 to 1,609 rigs, gas rigs down 10 to 320 rigs, and […]
We are in a very interesting market as many factors are influencing domestic scrap and steel prices. We discuss currency issues in tonight’s issue as the appreciating dollar means less competitive exports out of the United States but it also makes foreign steel imports more attractive to buyers. We have falling iron ore (which is […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to be optimistic regarding their company’s ability to be successful in the current market environment as well as out three to six months into the future. Steel Market Update reported their Sentiment Index as +64 on Thursday, October 9th. The + 64 reading is unchanged from their […]
On Monday of this week, SMU began our early October flat rolled steel market survey. Invitations were sent to approximately 600 companies across the United States and Canada. The survey was concluded earlier today (Thursday). One of the key focus areas for the survey is to discover if there are any changes in lead times […]
Based on the responses received from our SMU flat rolled steel survey conducted this week, we have learned that the domestic steel mills have become more willing to negotiate flat rolled steel prices than they were in mid-September. We also learned the mills are more willing to discuss pricing than they have been going back […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. indicates hot rolled coil price momentum fell this week for the seventh week in a row. MoMo, which is a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the current hot rolled coil (HRC) price movements against […]
I noticed that one of our Steel Summit speakers, Timna Tanners of Bank of America Merrill Lynch Research, has been named to the All-America Research Team as the Number 1 Metals & Mining Analyst by Institutional Investor. This is the second number one ranking for Tanners in as many years. Timna is a fan of […]
Building permit values in Canada fell by 27.3 percent to $6.7 billion in August with declines across the board in residential and nonresidential construction following 3 months of double digit gains, according to data published by Statistics Canada. The Royal Bank of Canada had forecast a decline of 6.5 percent from July’s record of $9.15 […]
On Tuesday (today) Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Neutral to Lower. I explain our reasoning in the first article above regarding our price indices. I will do a more detailed explanation as to why we are making a change at this point in time in the coming days. Today Steel […]
Each month the Commerce Department issues its Construction Put in Place (CPIP) data on the first working day covering activity two months earlier. August data was released on October 1st. Construction put in place is based on spending work as it occurs, estimated for a given month from a sample of projects. In effect the […]
The following article was written by John Packard, founder and publisher of Steel Market Update and an active steel salesperson for 31 years within the flat rolled steel industry. Packard’s experiences include 20 years of service center sales and management experience, 10 years of domestic steel mill sales experience (as an agent) and 6 years […]
I will take a moment to recommend the Armada Corporate Intelligence report and the Armada website as something those in the marketing sections of your company may want to subscribe to. The cost is negligible and the value is quite high in my opinion. A good example is on their website on Saturday, October 4th […]
Our Price Momentum Indicator has been stuck in “Neutral” since the last day of June 2014. We are now entering our 4th month and hot rolled steel prices have barely budged from the center line (OK, there have been some mild gyrations but no clear cut path up or down during the past three months). […]
One of the first things that we noticed when looking at the graph below is all of the “neutral” arrows (yellow arrows in SMU Pricing Momentum) going across the full spectrum of the table shown. We went back to see at what point did we move our Momentum to Neutral and found we made the […]
US automotive sales for September totaled 1.24 million units according to the final tally at WardsAuto. Sales were just under Wards’ forecast of 1.26 million units. General Motors and Chyrsler sales were 19 percent higher year over year. Ford, at 180,175 vehicles, was down 3 percent from September 2013. “Auto sales remained strong in September […]
The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. showed hot rolled coil price momentum falling this week for the sixth week in a row after being in positive territory for the previous four weeks. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is measured as a percentage and shows the relation of the […]
One item I keep hearing from the service centers I speak with – and it doesn’t matter what the product is – hot rolled, galvanized, Galvalume I am hearing the same thing. Business is good, in some cases excellent, but margins are being squeezed. Competition appears to be willing to move off inventory for whatever […]
Today is the last day of the month and the last day of the 3rd Quarter 2014. According to one of the attorney’s who spoke at our Steel Summit Conference at the beginning of September today is the day that the domestic mills would want to file a dumping suit so they would not have […]
According to Baker Hughes data from September 26th 2014, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,931 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This count is unchanged compared to last week, with oil rigs down 9 to 1,592 rigs, gas rigs up 9 to 338 rigs, and miscellaneous rigs unchanged at […]