Category: SMU

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We continue to slave away on the combination of our new website as well as the work needed to conclude a special steel training workshop we are doing with a domestic steel mill next week. Our next Steel 101 workshop is available for registration on our existing (and soon new) website or you can contact […]

The Department of Commerce economic data is running late and in the case of CPIP the September data will be released along with October on December 2nd. We now have August data released almost a month late.  Normally, this would be a Premium Level analysis only.  Since the reports are running behind we decided to […]

On Thursday, October 31st Steel Market Update adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Neutral to Higher. We now believe domestic flat rolled steel prices will rise over the next 30 to 60 days. We have already begun reporting prices as rising over the past three weeks. Prices on benchmark hot rolled coil had been bouncing […]

The flow of higher pricing slowed this past week as a number of indices – including Platts – did not move their flat rolled steel price assessments compared to the previous week. The range between high and low on benchmark hot rolled coils shrunk to $6 per ton with Steel Market Update being in the […]

U.S. automakers sales were up by 10.4 percent in October to 1.2 million vehicles.  Early October sales slowed during the government shutdown as customers waited to see how the fiscal standoff resolved, but auto sales picked up later in the month. The seasonally adjusted annualized rate fell slightly to 15.22 million, down from 15.26 million […]

Last evening (Thursday, October 31st) Steel Market Update adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Neutral to Higher. We now believe domestic flat rolled steel prices will rise over the next 30 to 60 days. We have already begun reporting prices as rising over the past three weeks. Prices on benchmark hot rolled coil had been […]

This will be a crazy busy week for all of us here at Steel Market Update. Besides working on final preparations to launch our new website we will be conducting our early November steel market survey and we are finishing up on a private steel industry training workshop for one of the domestic steel mills. […]

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 at present is thirty six. The present situation of eleven of the indicators based on historical standards was positive on October 31st and thirteen were negative; […]

Last evening (Thursday, October 31st) Steel Market Update adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Neutral to Higher. We now believe domestic flat rolled steel prices will rise over the next 30 to 60 days. We have already begun reporting prices as rising over the past three weeks. Prices on benchmark hot rolled coil had been […]

It seems to be a foregone conclusion that there will be a flat rolled price increase announcement within the next few working days. Spot prices have remained firm with benchmark hot rolled averaging $665 per ton ($650-$680 range) based on our SMU index. Scrap is forecast to be up by $20 to $40 per gross […]

The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained positive this week for the 3rd week in a row after 4 consecutive weeks of being in negative territory. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is based upon the current hot rolled coil price weighed against the previous 12-week average spot price […]

It has now been three consecutive months that the SMU Price Momentum Indicator has been at Neutral. Flat rolled steel prices have broken out of the $640 per ton doldrums with benchmark hot rolled coil haven risen to $665 as of earlier this week. The monthly average for benchmark hot rolled is $651 per ton […]

The S&P/Case-Shiller Index reported existing home prices accelerated in August as indicated by a 12.8 percent year-over-year increase and 1.3 percent monthly increase. Both the 10-city and 20-city composites were at their highest annual increase since February 2006. “The monthly percentage changes for the 20-City composite show the peak rate of gain in home prices […]

About a week ago, one of my long-time readers sent me an email asking me to tell my readers what I really think about things. That has always been the intention of my Final Thoughts segment.  This is the area where I voice my opinions on subjects and entertain comments from my readers. I hope […]

Residential Storage Water Heaters U.S. shipments of residential gas storage water heaters for August 2013 increased 22.7 percent, to 335,909 units, up from 273,759 units shipped in August 2012. Residential electric storage water heater shipments increased 16.6 percent in August 2013, to 326,805 units, up from 280,177 units shipped in August 2012. For the year-to-date, […]

The testing of the new Steel Market Update website continues. We are probably 90 percent through the process and have a few projects which still need to be completed before we can bring the site up live for you to (hopefully) enjoy. We anticipate once we launch the site we will still have a few […]

Ford Motor produced about 1.5 million units during the 3rd Quarter.  This was 187,000 more vehicles than they produced during the 3rd Quarter 2012. In the 4th Quarter total production will be 1.6 million units which is 102,000 units higher than a year ago.  However, this includes a reduction of 15,000 units from the company’s […]

Caterpillar Inc. third quarter sales and revenues dropped to $13.423 billion from $16.445 billion in the third quarter of 2012.  As a result, Caterpillar has revised its 2013 outlook downward and now expects sales and revenue of about $55 billion from the previous range of $56 to $58 billion.    “This year has proven to […]

As John Temples mentioned in an article above, we are being forced to be a tad more protective of the information we are delivering to our members. SMU has invested heavily in our new website – both in our time and money. This was done so that we could continue to grow – add new […]

The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. remained positive this week for the 2nd week in a row after 4 consecutive weeks of being in negative territory. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is based upon the current hot rolled coil price weighed against the previous 12-week average spot price […]

The early forecast is for scrap prices to increase by $20 per gross ton in early November. If this happens it could help keep domestic mill prices at current levels (or slightly higher).  It could also prompt the domestic mills to ask for another price increase. Longer term the analysts believe domestic scrap prices will […]

On August 23rd Steel Market Update adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Higher to Neutral. Since that time benchmark hot rolled prices have been within $5 per ton (+/-) of $640 per ton until this past week when prices rose by $15 per ton. Essentially, we began capturing transactions and offers related to the price […]

For the past four plus months, Steel Market Update has been producing our newsletter(s) on two websites at the same time. Considering our company has a relatively small number of full time employees this has not been an easy task. Besides me – Brett Linton, Sandy Williams, Peter Wright, John Temples as well as Ryan […]

In our recent steel market survey which we conducted this past week, 56.4 percent of those responding to our questions (all respondents) told us the current contract negotiations on their 2014 flat rolled steel needs represented a “game changer” for the U.S. steel industry. Manufacturers We asked manufacturing companies if their contract negotiations included reduction […]

The Steel Market Update Price MoMo Index for flat rolled steel in the U.S. turned positive this week after 4 consecutive weeks in negative territory. MoMo, a trailing indicator, is based upon the current hot rolled coil price weighed against the previous 12-week average spot price as recorded by Steel Market Update. MoMo was measured […]

We are in the “final” testing of our new website. Unless we have another setback in the coming days we should be able to bring the site up within the next week to 10 days. Give us a few more days to make sure the subscription system is working properly and then we will need […]

Domestic mill lead times, which had been relatively flat since the beginning of September according to past SMU steel market surveys, are beginning to indicate a modest strengthening. Our survey respondents put hot rolled lead times at 4.07 weeks (last year in mid-October they were 2.93 weeks) which is up slightly from the 3.94 weeks […]

Based on responses from the Steel Market Update (SMU) mid-October steel market survey, SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index is +38 and is considered to represent an optimistic view of the industry by those buying and selling flat rolled steel products. The latest reading is up one point over our early October measurement but is one […]

Automotive production, sales and inventory in NAFTA through September 2013 Based on Ward’s automotive reports, total light vehicle, (LV) production was 1,390,175 units in September, down by 3.3 percent from August. Autos were down by 5.1 percent and light trucks by 1.8 percent. A better measure of direction is the three month rolling average of […]