SMU doesn’t normally publish obituaries. I found the one about Berthod Beitz former Chairman of Krupp Steel especially touching and important to acknowledge. For the younger generation the idea of death camps and the world at war must be quite foreign. Even those of us born after World War II have only faded memories of […]
Written by Sandy Williams German industrialist, Berthold Beitz, the “grand old man of steel,” died on July 30 at 99 years of age. Beitz turned the privately run Krupp Steel company into a publically traded corporation that is now ThyssenKrupp Steel, but he is also credited for saving hundreds of Jews during World War II. […]
Written by: Peter Wright Once a quarter the Federal Reserve surveys the senior loan officers of 73 domestic banks and 22 U.S. branches and agencies of foreign banks – questions cover changes in the standards and terms of the banks’ lending and the state of business and household demand for loans. The following is an […]
Written by: Diana Packard For the week ending August 3, 2013, the American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported that the U.S. steel industry produced 1,888,000 net tons of raw steel, a 0.9 percent increase over the previous week and a 1.8 increase over the same week one year ago. The estimated capacity utilization […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Participants in the July ISM Steel Buyers Survey reported lean inventories and lower than desired orders for July. Buyers reported tons on hand covered shipping levels for 2 months or less. Inventory levels were considered Right by 77.8 percent of those surveyed and Too High by 37.2 percent with plans to […]
Written by Sandy Williams The Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) has asked U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman to protect domestic steel plate from an onslaught of imports from Europe. “We urge USTR to undertake a diplomatic initiative targeted at the European countries that are rapidly increasing their shipments of CTL plate and other products to the […]
Written by: John Packard Chicago area scrap deals were lower on shred and basically sideways on #1 HMS and #1 Busheling according to SMU sources as of today. #1 heavy melt was put at $351-$355 per gross ton. Shredded Scrap was put at $366 per gross ton. #1 Busheling was reported to be sideways […]
Written by: John Packard SMU thought our readers might be interested in what the domestic mills are “publishing” as lead times as of Monday of this week for new orders placed at that time. We have a number of mill lead times for you to review. AK Steel has informed their customers that their Middletown […]
Written by: John Packard Are we seeing early signs of prices weakening? The combination of our survey, which began on Thursday of last week and concluded earlier today, and our channel checks with both manufacturing and distributors produced a wider range in pricing than we had been seeing in recent weeks. Is this the beginning […]
Written by: John Packard Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index was measured at +38 based on the results of our mid-August review of the flat rolled steel market. Sentiment continues to be at the peak of optimism displayed during calendar year 2013. Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel continue to respond in […]
Written by: John Packard Bucket Deals are Killing Regional Wholesalers and Small Distributors Somewhere along the line the idea of allowing flexible tonnage purchases on month to month tonnages originally pegged for spot purchases to go into “bucket deals” has been killing some of the smaller spot distributors and wholesalers. The worst time is now […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) watches a number of steel indexes and their weekly price movements on various flat rolled products. Since the May 22nd price increase announcement by U.S. Steel the indexes have been capturing a steady increase in pricing. The spread on benchmark hot rolled has narrowed with all but SteelBenchmarker being within $5.50/per […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and The Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a forecast to the HARDI members located in the United […]
One of our scrap sources – a Northeast based shredding company – reported sales to one of the mill scrap brokerage companies with two sales on shredded scrap. One 35,000 ton lot at down $20 per gross ton shipping by rail, a second lot of shred sold down $15 per gross ton to ship by […]
Written by: Damon Sun, Daido International The Far East markets will be rather quiet this week. Finished demand is still rather poor. Mills were able to lift construction steel prices up about $10/mt, but scrap prices moved up $20/mt. Rebar prices in Taiwan and in S. E. Asia have retreated/sideways from last week and […]
At SMU we have never previously examined the civilian participation rate or the extent to which part time employment growth is influencing the bottom line number of job creation. Since we believe that both these aspects must influence consumer confidence, consumer spending and ultimately GDP and steel consumption, we decided to dig deeper this month. […]
Written by: Brett Linton According to Baker Hughes data from August 2nd, 2013, the U.S rig count for this week is 1,782 rigs exploring for or developing oil or natural gas. This number represents an increase of 6 rigs compared to last week, with oil rigs down 13 to 1,388 rigs, gas rigs up 19 […]
Letter to the Editor: I would like to add to Peter Brebach’s comments regarding the recently filed dumping suits against nine countries and up front can agree that the majority of the nine countries will be found guilty of dumping [oil country tubular goods]. Since 1969 the domestic steel industry has filed more dumping complaints with […]
Written by: John Packard Steel Market Update is bringing online a new website with the next few weeks. Our first website took approximately a month to build back in the summer of 2008. Almost as soon as it came online we realized it was underpowered for what we were trying to achieve for our readers […]
Our steel market survey will continue on Monday and Tuesday of this week. The survey, which began on Thursday, deals with the current trends in the flat rolled market. If you receive an email invitation with a link to the survey please take a few moments to complete our questionnaire. Our Steel 101 workshop is […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Essar Steel Algoma reported an EBITDA of $9.7 million and a net loss of $25.1 million for the third quarter ending December 31, 2012. Essar said lower selling prices were offset by higher volumes and lower costs compared to the same three month period in 2011. Selling prices and costs decreased […]
Written by: John Packard Steel Market Update has been conducting our twice monthly steel surveys for approximately five years now. When we started, we chose people and companies with whom we trusted and had worked with knowing we could depend on the quality of the information gathered. Having worked within the industry for over 30 […]
According to Preliminary Census Data, June imports into the United States were approximately 14 percent lower than what was reported for May 2013. The preliminary data has total imports at 2,442,082 net tons down from 2,838,293 tons in May. The June tonnage is below both the 3-month and 12-month moving averages. Compared to June 2012 […]
We are still a couple weeks away from receiving MSCI inventory and shipment data for the month of December. Even so, our most recent steel market survey should provide some insights into what we may see in the MSCI data when it is released later this month. According to those service centers responding to our […]
Written by Brad Clark, Director of Steel Trading, Kataman Metals Last week’s $15 drop down the forward curve has done little to spark new trading interest as prices have bounced a touch off the lows around $620. We are now stuck around the $625 range for the balance of 2013. With the spot indices hovering […]
Based on the results from the Steel Market Update (SMU) steel survey which began on Monday and concluded earlier today, the SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index remained mildly optimistic and was measured at +17. This is a 2 point improvement over the +15 reported at the beginning of March. The +17 recorded for the middle […]
It has been a hectic past few days due to my travel schedule – which happened to include a drive from Montreal to Albany, New York in the middle of a snow storm. It has been more than 30 years since I lived in Minnesota…but, the lessons learned those many years ago came in handy […]
The American Iron & Steel Institute (AISI) reported their estimated raw steel production data for the week ending March 16, 2013. According to AISI estimates the U.S. steel industry produced 1,785,000 net tons of raw steel last week. This represents a decrease of 2.4 percent compared to the week earlier and is 9.9 percent lower […]
Written by: Peter Wright The housing market is important to steel producers and processors for a number of reasons, some of which are not obvious. Not a lot of steel is consumed in wood framed houses but housing starts also lead sales of appliances and other steel items. Starts also positively affect ancillary non-residential construction […]
Written by: Sandy Williams Steel shipments will be flat in the first quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2012 said Steel Dynamics in its first quarter 2013 earnings guidance. Galvanized sheet volume is projected to decrease but be offset by increases in long product shipments, including SBQ, standard railroad rail and wide flange products. […]