As we moved about the market speaking to buyers of flat rolled steel, we found ourselves immersed in a dialogue about demand now being the major driver of steel prices moving forward. SMU spoke with a number of very large flat rolled steel service center buyers who told us that demand is “fragmented” and there […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released Final Census Data for June as well as an update on July import license data earlier this week. Foreign steel imports came in at 2,821,894 net tons during the month of June. This is essentially unchanged from the prior month’s 2,876,358 net tons of imports. July imports, based on […]
For the week ending August 6, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,697,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.0 percent increase over the previous week but a 1.7 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.6 percent, up […]
We saw minor erosion in hot rolled prices this past week according to the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Both our own index as well as Platts dropped their HRC average by $5 per ton. As of the end of last week Steel Market Update was showing hot rolled as averaging $610 per […]
SMU Sources are advising us that obsolete grades of ferrous scrap are trading sideways (prices remaining the same as last month) while prime grades move lower by $10 to $15 per gross ton in the Chicago, Ohio Valley, Detroit and Indiana markets. Prior to negotiations beginning, the expectation was for obsolete grades to remain intact […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by David Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures market and we believe he will provide insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. […]
A couple of the steel mills SMU spoke with today reported their coated order books as being close to closed for September. They reported that there is not a need to make any price adjustments. At the same time, both the mills we spoke with, as well as steel buyers around the country, are anxiously […]
By the end of this week, the U.S. Department of Commerce is scheduled to release their final determinations on hot rolled antidumping and countervailing duties against seven countries: Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Japan, United Kingdom, Turkey and the Netherlands. Combined these seven countries represented roughly 55 percent of all hot rolled imported into the United […]
For the week ending July 30, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,681,000 net tons of raw steel, a 1.3 percent decrease over the previous week and a 3.9 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 71.9 percent, down […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) recently reported final U.S. raw steel production estimates for the month of June 2016. The monthly estimates are different than the weekly estimates we report in our Tuesday issues; the AISI bases the monthly estimates on over 75 percent of the domestic mills reporting vs. only 50 percent […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between European and Chinese hot rolled export prices and domestic (US) hot rolled prices. We want our readers to note that we have made a decision to replace SteelBenchmarker as the primary data provider of world and Chinese hot rolled coil pricing. […]
Flat rolled steel prices are relatively stable for yet another week according to the various steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. SMU took two items slightly lower: cold rolled ($815/ton) and Galvanized .060” G90 ($880/ton). SteelBenchmarker, who only reports prices twice per month, saw hot rolled down $4/ton ($624/ton) and cold rolled was off […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel A trickle of bullish news for steel helping to push values higher on very light HR futures volume and reduced selling interests. […]
Cliffs Natural Resources recorded another successful quarter with net income of $30 million for continuing operations compared to a net loss of $38 million in Q2 2015. Adjusted EBITDA was $102 million, driven by higher domestic steel prices. EBITDA included idle expenses of $20 million for the Northshore and United Taconite mines. US iron ore […]
On Wednesday of this week the U.S. Department of Commerce reported Preliminary Census data on imports of foreign steel for the month of June 2016. The data is initially released in metric tons which Steel Market Update has converted to net tons for our readers. Imports in June totaled 2.630,373 net tons which are down […]
Flat rolled steel prices remained essentially unchanged for yet another week. We did pick up a break in the $600 barrier on hot rolled steel. However, we were only able to tie that price level to one Canadian mill into the Chicago market. The other mills appear to be holding much closer to $610-$620 per […]
Initial reports coming out of the financial community are suggesting ferrous scrap prices could be down $5 to $15 per ton once the August negotiations between the steel mills and their suppliers get under way. The expectation that the prime grades will be hit after spending a couple of months moving sideways. However, not all […]
For the week ending July 23, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,703,000 net tons of raw steel, a 2.5 percent decrease over the previous week and a 2.7 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 72.8 percent, down […]
Flat rolled steel prices slipped on both Platts and Steel Market Update this past week. Benchmark hot rolled slid $10 per ton on SMU and $10 per ton on Platts with our average now down $8 per ton for the week. SteelBenchmarker did not report steel prices this past week. Cold rolled prices remained stationary […]
Service centers support for higher spot prices has deteriorated over the past couple of months according to our latest survey results. Manufacturers reported distributors as backing away from raising spot prices on flat rolled products. This is a big change from what they were reporting just one month ago when 78 percent of the manufacturers […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Dave Feldstein. As Flack Steel’s director of risk management, Dave is an active participant in the hot rolled coil (HRC) futures market and we believe he will provide insightful commentary and trading ideas to our readers. […]
Production in the month of June at 135,720,000 metric tons was down by 2.7 percent from May and the three month moving average (3MMA) that we prefer as a measure was down by 0.2 percent year over year. Month over month the 3MMA was down by 0.6 percent. Capacity is 2.3 billion tonnes per year […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been “drifting” over the past few weeks. By that we mean there has been some minor adjustments to pricing on a weekly basis but nothing that would qualify as a trend in one direction or another. Steel buyers are trying to gauge the strength and direction of the breeze blowing […]
For the week ending July 15, 2016, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) estimated the U.S. steel industry produced 1,746,000 net tons of raw steel, a 2.0 percent increase over the previous week but a 0.2 percent decrease over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization rate is 74.7 percent, up […]
Essar Steel Minnesota has named a new CEO to take the company through it restructuring process. The company, which declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 8, has selected Matthew Stock to replace Mandhu Vuppuluri as CEO, effective immediately. Stock has 25 years of experience in the steel and metals mining business including leading efforts […]
For those of you who are not familiar with Steel Market Update and our ways of gathering information one of the things we do is conduct what we call a detailed flat rolled steel market trends analysis twice per month. Our trends analysis is another way of saying we conduct an extensive survey of the […]
Flat rolled prices had a relatively “ho hum” week as we saw very little movement in any of the indexes with the exception of SteelBenchmarker which only produces prices twice per month. Benchmark hot rolled prices ranged from a low (average) from our own index which came in at $620 per ton for a second […]
Steel traders have not been shy about pointing at Vietnam and Turkey as the leaders for cold rolled export pricing into the United States. Since the antidumping suits were filed against China in particular, first Vietnam and then Turkey have been quick to offer cold rolled into the United States and are building market share. […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall and Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how they saw trading over the past week: It has been a quiet week in Hot Rolled futures (HRC) with 13,380 short tons (ST) trading.Until […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update to identify the spread between world hot rolled export prices as determined by SteelBenchmarker and domestic (US) hot rolled prices as published by SMU. Steel Market Update compares the world hot rolled export price to which dollars are added for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. The number […]