I’m running out of ways to write about steel prices going down because I’ve been doing it since late April. There are the usual reasons plus a few new ones. There had been hopes that China would come out of Covid lockdowns, that Beijing would roll out stimulus, and that Asian HRC prices would set […]
Wolfe Research managing director Timna Tanners will be the featured speaker on our next SMU Community Chat webinar on Wednesday, June 29, at 11 a.m. ET. The live webinar is free. A recording will be available free to SMU members. You can register here. We’ll talk about Tanners’ outlook for steel prices, raw materials costs, […]
Wolfe Research managing director Timna Tanners will be the featured speaker on our next SMU Community Chat webinar on Wednesday, June 29, at 11 a.m. ET. The live webinar is free. A recording will be available free to SMU members. You can register here. We’ll talk about Tanners’ outlook for steel prices, raw materials costs, […]
There have been some interesting developments in the plate market lately if you’ve been paying close attention. Let’s start with Nucor’s price decrease on cut-to-length (CTL) plate. For starters, let’s be clear that it’s only CTL prices that were dropped. Prices for discrete plate are unchanged. First, a little background. CTL plate refers to material […]
Sheet prices are falling at the fastest clip we’ve seen since before the war in Ukraine. Let’s call it the great rewind. But where are we rewinding to – earlier this year or 2019, the last “normal” market we had before the disruptions caused by the pandemic and the war? First come context: SMU’s average […]
Olympic Steel CEO Rick Marabito will be the featured speaker on our SMU Community Chat on Wednesday at 11 am ET. The live webinar is free. A recording of it is free only to SMU members. You can register here. We’ll talk about why the sky is not falling even though carbon prices and futures are softening. […]
A growing number of steel market participants think that hot-rolled coil (HRC) prices will fall below $1,000 per ton ($50 per cwt). An increasing number also think that prices won’t hit bottom until the third quarter at the earliest. Check out the charts below. SMU’s HRC price was at $1,190 per ton ($59.50 per cwt) […]
Mills are struggling to fill July order books, and some might still have room in June – that’s the feedback we’re getting from market participants and in our survey. You can check the full details in Brett Linton’s writeup of our latest lead time figures. One consequence of slipping lead times: We’re hearing from more […]
May was a good month for market participants surveyed by SMU, most of whom reported meeting or beating expectations then. Approximately 55% of survey respondents said they met their business forecasts last month, 25% said they exceeded them, and only 20% said they missed forecast. The big question will be June, which has seen steel price […]
The big news of the day is that hot-rolled coil prices slipped below $1,200 per ton ($60 per cwt) for the first time since the start of the Ukraine war. The big question remains how far they’ll fall and how fast. There are no immediate signs of what might stop the declines. The Detroit-area scrap […]
Severstal is no longer shipping “anything” to the United States, a company spokeswoman said. The Russian steelmaker instead intends to “continue working with our partners who are not tied with obligations to US,” she said in an email to Steel Market Update. The comments come after the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets […]
Olympic Steel CEO Rick Marabito will be the featured speaker on our next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, June 15, at 11 am ET. The live webinar is free. A recording of it is free only to SMU members. You can register here. We’ll talk about why the sky is not falling even though carbon prices and […]
SMU updates its prices every Tuesday evening, and all indications are that prices could be in for a significant adjustment downward this week. This time last year, big orders at times had to pay a premium over small orders because the market was so tight and because prices were shooting up so fast. That’s no longer […]
Several of you, including some senior executives, have told me recently that I’m being too pessimistic about pricing. I’m not sure what to say about that. It gives me no joy to write about prices falling. No doubt it hurts those holding inventory to see it devalued. But me not writing about prices falling doesn’t […]
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. has changed how it supplies the automotive industry in response to chip and parts shortages that have thrown a wrench into automaker production forecasts, the company’s top executive said. “We no longer adopt their forecast as the final truth, like it was historically,” Cliffs chairman, president and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said. How did […]
Sheet and plate prices continue to fall. That’s not a surprise, as there is little reason for them to do otherwise. What is surprising when you step back is just how quickly prices have fallen, and how much further they could continue to fall. SMU’s hot-rolled coil price now stands at $1,255 per ton ($62.75 […]
Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) sees a “myriad of opportunities” on the M&A front but disagreements over valuations have prevented some of those deals from moving forward, the company’s top executive said. “It’s a matter of determining what is a great strategic fit at a reasonable value. … People’s aspirations of value are a little steep […]
Flack Global Metals (FGM) founder and CEO Jeremy Flack will be the featured speaker on our next SMU Community Chat on Wednesday, June 1, at 11 am ET. The webinar is free. You can register here. Here are just a few of the topics we’ll discuss: • Black Swan events and increased volatility are now the […]
The US will lift Section 232 tariffs from Ukrainian steel imports on Wednesday, June 1, at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time, the White House said. The waiver from the national security duties will remain in place until at least 11:59 pm Eastern on June 1, 2023. “In light of the ongoing security discussions and significant disruption […]
The US will lift Section 232 tariffs from Ukrainian steel imports on Wednesday, June 1, at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time, the White House said. The waiver from the national security duties will remain in place until at least 11:59 pm Eastern on June 1, 2023. “In light of the ongoing security discussions and significant disruption […]
Steel Market Update will be taking time off in observance of Memorial Day. We will not publish an issue on Sunday, May 29, and our offices will be closed on Monday, May 30. Our weekly pricing service will not be impacted. We will resume our regular publication schedule and our pricing service on Tuesday, May […]
Who wants to be in the hot-rolled coil business anymore? I ask that only partly in jest. It’s not that no one wants to make spot HRC anymore. It’s just that not many companies seem to want to make it their bread and butter. Nucor spending $3 billion for a garage door company and looking […]
Nucor Corp.’s $3 billion acquisition of CHI Overhead Doors, its largest deal ever, represents a shift away from the company’s traditional roots as a steelmaker. “We absolutely want to pivot from being just a steelmaker to a manufacturing company,” Nucor president and CEO Leon Topalian said. That’s notable because Nucor is the largest steelmaker in the […]
Nucor has signed a definitive purchase agreement to acquire Steel Technologies LLC’s pickle line facility and associated equipment in Ghent, Ky., where the steelmaker also operates a sheet mill. Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor said Steel Technologies would continue to own and operate slitting equipment at the Ghent location in a letter to customers dated Wednesday, May […]
Nucor Corp. will begin to ramp up the $650 million expansion and upgrade of its Gallatin sheet mill in Ghent, Ky., next month, a company spokeswoman confirmed. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker will take a one-week outage from Tuesday, May 31, to Tuesday, June 7, for final equipment installation. The ramp will begin after that, she […]
Prices are down across the board this week. That’s not new if you’ve been paying attention lately. Price increases are often announced. Decreases rarely are. What’s new is Nucor’s almost aggressively transparent pricing strategy – announcing not only price increases but also flat and decreasing prices. That is new on the sheet and plate side […]
Nucor will decrease plate prices by $50-200 per ton ($2.50-10 per cwt) depending on the product. The Charlotte, N.C.-based steelmaker made the announcement with the opening of its July orderbook for plate. Prices for as-rolled and normalized plate will be cut by $50 per ton, those for cut-to-length plate less than 72 inches wide will […]
What a whirlwind last week was. I want to thank Wolfe Research and Bank of America for inviting me to speak, the former virtually, the latter in person. I also want to thank Stanislav Zinchenko and the GMK Center for taking time to join us for what I thought was one of our better Community […]
What a whirlwind last week was. I want to thank Wolfe Research and Bank of America for inviting me to speak, the former virtually, the latter in person. I also want to thank Stanislav Zinchenko and the GMK Center for taking time to join us for what I thought was one of our better Community […]
What’s up with plate? I’ve been asked again and again how plate has managed to maintain such a high premium over sheet this year. Here are a few arguments that have been made to me over the past week in support of high plate prices. And below that are a few charts I still find […]