Category: SMU

The majority of the steel buyers responding to our latest market survey reported that domestic mills are not open to negotiating prices on new orders this week.

On 4 March, new 25% blanket tariffs across all products exported to the USA from Canada and Mexico are now in effect. The only exception is Canadian energy products, which will be assessed a 10% tariff.

Remember infrastructure week in Trump 1.0? It became a running joke. Because it was almost always derailed by whatever the scandal of the day was. In Trump 2.0, we've got tariff week. And unlike infrastructure week, tariff week is no joke.

Steel prices climbed across the board this week, with every steel product tracked by SMU rising to multi-month highs.

Construction spending edged down slightly in January, slipping for the first time in four months. The US Census Bureau estimated spending at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,196 billion in January, down 0.2% from December’s downward revised rate. The January figure is 3.3% higher than a year ago. January’s result, despite the slight erosion, […]

Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) President Philip K. Bell stressed a mood of "cautious optimism" for steel on what turned out to be Tariff Eve.

SMU’s Monthly Review provides a summary of key SMU steel market metrics for the previous month, with the latest data updated through February 28th.

Raw steel mill production declined last week to one of the lowest levels seen this year, according to recent figures released by the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).

Nucor has increased its list price for hot-rolled (HR) coil to $900 per short ton (st), according to a letter to customers on Monday. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker’s list price for HR is up $40/st from $860/st last week and up $125/st from $775/st a month ago, according to SMU’s mill price announcement calendar. The […]

US plate prices have moved up at a sharp clip over the past three weeks. The gains come on the heels of a unified mill pricing blitz, bolstered by the threat of looming tariffs and the expectation of sharply higher scrap prices. Prices hit their lowest level in more than four years in late January, […]

The price spread between stateside-produced CR and imports reached its widest margin in over a year.

That’s not to say Section 232 shouldn’t be tightened up. Or that certain trade practices – even among our traditional allies – weren’t problematic. But when it comes to the reboot of Section 232, I do wonder whether there will be some unintended consequences.

Prices for six of the seven steelmaking raw materials SMU tracks are increased from January to February, according to our latest analysis.

President Trump has directed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to investigate copper imports into the US under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 on national security grounds.

One buyer summed up the prevailing sentiment: “Everything is pointing up — pricing, sentiment, order activity. But the real test will come once the immediate reactionary buying subsides. Will there be enough true demand to support these levels through mid-year? That’s the big unknown.”

It won't be so easy to restart idled aluminum production in the US, AMU says.

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, SMU polled steel buyers on an array of topics, ranging from market prices, demand, inventories, imports and evolving market events.

As February comes to a close this week, the scrap markets are poised for another – and perhaps more extreme – move upward in March. March is usually a month when scrap prices relent as winter’s impediments subside. That’s not the case this year. And this time, the driver of prices will be increased demand from mills along with restricted flows over the last two months.

Market participants might disagree over how high flat-rolled steel price might go and for how long they might remain elevated. But there is near total agreement on one thing: Prices are up sharply again this week. The gains come on the heels of waves of mill price increases (for sheet and for plate), expectations that scrap prices will rise again in March, and the threat of tariffs looming over the market.

Evraz North America (NA) has followed Nucor and SSAB with a plate price increase of its own: up $160 per short ton (st). The increase was effective immediately for all new orders of carbon, high-strength low-alloy, and normalized and quenched-and-tempered plate products, as well as for hot-rolled coil, the steelmaker said in a letter to […]

As of Monday, Feb. 24, the steelmaker's list price for HR stood at $860 per short ton (st), up $40/st from last week. The company has increased HR prices by $110/st over the past four weeks, according to SMU's mill price announcement calendar.

Nucor aims to increase prices for steel plate by $160 per short ton (st) with the opening of its April order book. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker said the increase was effective with orders received on Feb. 24 in a letter to customers dated the same day.

Buyers are optimistic for a strong scrap market in March, driven by limited scrap inflows from severe weather disruptions and increasing mill demand.

The US steel market has whipsawed upward on the prospect of expanded Section 232 tariffs of 25% being applied to imported steel - including downstream goods - on March 12. It seems pretty clear that domestic steel mills have the ear of the Trump administration when it comes to Section 232. The result? The much-anticipated Trump bump has finally arrived - and then some.

Cleveland-Cliffs said it will open its April order book for spot material at $900 per short ton (st). The Cleveland-based steelmaker said the increase was necessary because of “rapidly changing market conditions” in a letter to customers dated Friday, Feb. 21.

SMU’s Current Buyers’ Sentiment Index rocketed up this week, while the Future Buyers’ Sentiment Index edged down. The two indices are almost at parity.

Some of you have told me that the current market feels about as crazy as early 2021 when demand snapped back after the initial outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Others have said it might be more like late February/early March 2022, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine – and, in the process, caused […]

SMU's Stephen Miller provides an update on the raw materials sector.

Buyers responding to our latest market survey reported that steel mill lead times were stretching out this week for sheet and plate products tracked by SMU. The results weren’t much of a surprise. Production times have begun moving out following a wave of frenzied buying in response to stricter Section 232 announced by the Trump […]

SSAB has increased plate prices by a total of $240/st in less than a month. That tally results from the current increase, an increase of $80/st in early February, and another of $60/st in late January, according to SMU’s price announcement calendar.