Construction spending fell 2.9 percent in April after holding steady in March. The Department of Commerce estimates construction spending was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.35 trillion—the lowest total since November, says the Associated General Contractors of America. Public construction spending dropped 2.5 percent from March to $342.1 billion. Private spending fell 3.0 […]
Steel buyers’ attitudes appear to be mirroring the economy—improving in painfully slow increments as coronavirus restrictions ease and more companies get back to work. Both Current and Future Sentiment as measured by Steel Market Update saw a 14-point improvement in the past two weeks and are up more than 30 points from the lows recorded […]
“Resilient” is how Barry Zekelman, executive chairman and CEO of Zekelman Industries, characterized steel markets during the SMU Community Chat Webinar yesterday. “We went through a rapid shock and adjustment at the end of March and early April, but April was actually pretty decent and May is basically back on track,” he said, expressing a fairly […]
By CRU Prices Analyst George Pearson, from CRU’s Steel Monitor In the U.S. Midwest, sheet prices have continued to strengthen while plate prices have weakened further. HR coil prices increased for the third consecutive week, albeit by just $5 /s.ton to $487 /s.ton. The volume-weighted average of transactions remains below recent mill targets of $500 […]
New data from U.S. Federal Reserve Districts shows economic activity declined in all regions of the country in April and May due to disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost all areas of economic activity were negatively impacted during the period. Most districts reported a severe drop in manufacturing activity with production especially weak in […]
You plan for as much as you can, and hope for the best… My events team, coupled with the CRU events team out of London, made the determination about a week ago that it was not going to be possible to conduct the SMU Steel Summit Conference at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta […]
Construction jobs reached multi-year lows in many states in April, according to the latest analysis of government data by the Associated General Contractors of America. Construction employment declined in every state except South Dakota, for a loss of 975,000 jobs last month. Employment in the sector was down 13 percent from March to April with […]
Mark Bula is well known in steel circles for his role in a past startup now known as Big River Steel. Bula recently joined a new startup whose mission is not making steel, but rather making steel more safely. Bula recently accepted a position as chief strategy officer and general manager of steel for Everguard.ai, […]
Barry Zekelman will be the guest speaker for our upcoming SMU Community Chat webinar. The free webinar will be held at 11 AM ET on Wednesday, May 27. Zekelman Industries buys 200,000 tons of steel each and every month. Their customers are associated with construction, energy, agriculture and many other market segments critical to the […]
Memorial Day 2020 When you want to know where you are in life, look in your closet. There it was, bulging at the seams yet ignored. The cloth bag is blood red. I looked up the color online and the closest match was Vallejo Game Air Bloody Red. It is suspended by a white draw […]
By CRU Economists Jumana Saleheen and Economist Yingrui Wang, from CRU’s Steel Metallics Monitor Special Feature: China will set out its major economic objectives and policy goals for 2020 at the National People’s Congress. We expect fiscal stimulus of 5-8 percent of nominal GDP to be announced, half the size of the stimulus that followed […]
Neither rosy nor the voice of doom, IHS Markit analyst John Anton offered a realistic assessment of the U.S. economic recovery post-COVID-19 during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat Webinar. Recovery from the current recession will not be a quick V-shaped rebound, said Anton, who is associate director of IHS Markit’s Pricing and Purchasing Service. Instead, he […]
Yesterday’s SMU Community Chat drew nearly 500 attendees to hear John Anton, associate director of the IHS Markit Pricing and Purchasing Service, give his analysis of the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on the U.S. economy and steel market. His presentation prompted nearly two dozen questions from listeners, too many to cover during the Q&A portion of […]
SMU contributor Tim Stevenson is a partner at Metal Edge Partners, a firm engaged in Risk Management and Strategic Advisory. In this role, he and his firm design and execute risk management strategies for clients along with providing process and analytical support. In Tim’s previous role, he was a Director at Cargill Risk Management, and […]
By CRU Analyst Nikki Ni, from CRU’s Steel Monitor Over the past month, Chinese steel demand has accelerated, resulting in lower inventories while output remained at a high level. The ongoing demand recovery has improved the Steel PMI to 45.9 in April, up by 3.7pp m/m. Despite being below the 50-mark, the consecutive m/m improvement […]
Demand for design services at architectural firms plummeted in April, dragging the Architecture Billings Index down to 29.5 and its lowest level in the history of the index, said the American Institute of Architects. The ABI follows March’s record decline of 20.1 points to 33.3. New project inquiries and design contract indices also declined significantly, […]
Barry Zekelman will be the next speaker for our very popular SMU Community Chat webinar. The free webinar will be held at 11 AM ET on Wednesday, May 27. Zekelman Industries buys 200,000 tons of steel each and every month. Their customers are associated with construction, energy, agriculture and many other market segments critical to […]
Steel demand is showing early signs of strengthening, said manufacturing and service center executives during Steel Market Update’s canvass of the market May 11-14, as officials in various states begin to ease coronavirus restrictions allowing businesses to slowly reopen. Half said demand for their products is stable or even improving, while the other half said […]
Wholesalers of HVAC products for the construction market report surprisingly strong sales given the coronavirus situation, but also concerns about construction demand in the second half when current work is completed and there are fewer new projects in the pipeline. In a conference call this morning, members of the Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors […]
Wholesalers of HVAC products have weathered the pandemic surprisingly well so far and are more concerned about construction demand months from now than they are about their near-term prospects. Consider what has happened since April as a result of the market’s response to the virus: Steel mills are operating at just above 50 percent of […]
Housing starts plummeted 30.2 percent in April compared to March, falling to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 891,000 and the lowest level since 2015. Compared to April 2019, starts tumbled 27.9 percent, said the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Building permit authorizations were at a SAAR of 1,074,000, […]
By CRU Economist Anissa Chabib, from CRU’s Economic Outlook On May 8, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the official U.S. unemployment data for April. Unemployment increased to 14.7 percent from 4.4 percent in March. This is the highest rate and the largest month-on-month increase in the history of the series, which was created […]
We had to change the way we calculate the adjusted data, which will also change how we derive our analysis. Previously, we adjusted the data to mirror the exact mix of service centers that responded to the previous month’s survey. We saw a decrease in participation in the March survey, which we can understand given […]
We are in the middle of a black swan event—an event that is expected but unexpected, said Chris Kuehl, managing director of Armada Corporate Intelligence during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat Webinar. “Viral threats are not new and have been frequent in the past few decades, but we don’t know from year to year how they […]
We are in the middle of a black swan event—an event that is expected but unexpected, said Chris Kuehl, managing director of Armada Corporate Intelligence during Wednesday’s SMU Community Chat Webinar. “Viral threats are not new and have been frequent in the past few decades, but we don’t know from year to year how they […]
Like producers and distributors of prime steel, most sellers of nonprime or secondary steel have been hard hit by the virus. Yet secondary material is still available from the mills even though their production is way down. Some distributors are doing surprisingly well, depending on their customer base and location, while others are struggling. Secondary […]
By CRU Senior Analyst Ryan McKinley, from CRU’s Steel Metallics Monitor The CRU metallics price indicator (CRUmpi) moved higher by 11.5 percent m/m to 202.4 in May. Supply constraints caused by the Covid-19 pandemic combined with either sustained or recovering scrap demand to lift prices across most of the globe, although pig iron demand was […]
John Anton is apologetic that his forecast for the steel market is so gloomy, “but realism outweighs the optimism,” he tells Steel Market Update. The Associate Director of Pricing and Purchasing at IHS Markit, Anton will be the guest speaker during the next SMU Community Chat webinar, beginning at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May […]
John Anton is apologetic that his forecast for the steel market is so gloomy, “but realism outweighs the optimism,” he tells Steel Market Update. The Associate Director of Pricing and Purchasing at IHS Markit, Anton will be the guest speaker during the next SMU Community Chat webinar, beginning at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May […]
Cleveland-Cliffs expects operations to normalize during the second quarter as end-markets begin recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. “Although the pandemic effect led to automotive plant shutdowns over the past six weeks, the timing and pace of production restarts as well as consumer sales data have both exceeded our expectations,” said Cliffs’ Chairman, President and CEO […]