Steel Market Update provides a comparison of a handful of flat rolled steel indices to not only check prices but also look for changes in price momentum. The four indexes reviewed are: CRU, Platts, SteelBenchmarker and our own SMU index. Hot rolled prices dropped again this past week as all of the reporting indexes were […]
Steel Market Update recently published an article about the beginning of the 2015 non-automotive flat rolled steel price negotiations between end users, service centers and the domestic steel mills. We continue to gather information regarding the status and tone of the negotiations and we are learning that 2015 will be much different than what transpired […]
2015 annual contract negotiations have begun, according to both manufacturers and service center steel buyers. The next month or two should be quite interesting as the process continues. Early reports are suggesting that the domestic steel mills may be more “flexible” in their flat rolled steel price negotiations than they were at this point in […]
Contributing writer, Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC, provides a glimpse at the financial, copper, steel (hot rolled coil), iron ore and scrap markets for our readers. Mr. Marshall is well known within the futures community and is the instructor for our Managing Price Risk I & II workshops. Financial Markets: Rethinking Island Mentality The […]
As of Friday of this past week, SMU, CRU and Platts had hot rolled price averages as $655, $656 and $655 per ton. SteelBenchmarker did not report prices last week and remains stuck at $668 per ton. Our average dropped to $659 per ton as all three of the reporting indexes saw HRC down $5 […]
One of the first things that we noticed when looking at the graph below is all of the “neutral” arrows (yellow arrows in SMU Pricing Momentum) going across the full spectrum of the table shown. We went back to see at what point did we move our Momentum to Neutral and found we made the […]
Hot rolled dropped $4 per ton based on the averages of the four indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Three of the indexes had hot rolled at $660 per ton (SMU, Platts) or $661 per ton (CRU) with SteelBenchmarker the highest at $668 per ton. For cold rolled, SteelBenchmarker was the lowest index at $774 […]
Everyone continues to watch for how the consolidation of the Severstal NA assets (Dearborn and Columbus steel mills) will impact the flat rolled steel markets. Early indications are for shorter lead times out of the SDI Columbus facility and Dearborn lead times are shorter than the Middletown and Ashland plants for AK Steel. But, it […]
Andre Marshall, an active futures trader and owner of Crunch Risk, LLC, provided the following recap of hot rolled futures, iron ore and scrap as well as some words regarding the financial markets and copper trading. Here is what he shared with SMU this evening: Financial Markets: Well today saw a pretty big drop in […]
Zinc prices hit a three year high in September at $2390/t, escalating quickly from the mid $1900s in March. Although the prices have moderated in the last few weeks zinc, as of September 18, zinc was at $2247/metric ton on the LME index. The soaring prices are due to production shortfalls and higher demand. The […]
One of our readers asked us earlier this week what the average price for hot rolled has been so far this calendar year according to the Steel Market Update HRC index. The answer to that question is $665.30 per ton through this current week. The average of all of the hot rolled indexes followed on […]
The following report was prepared by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk, LLC which is a company specializing in hot rolled, ferrous scrap and other “futures” contracts or financial derivatives. Today he discusses the broader financial markets, hot rolled steel futures (HRC), iron ore and ferrous scrap futures (BUS) trading on the CME. Andre Marshall […]
Flat rolled steel prices moved lower this past week according to the various steel price indexes followed by Steel Market Update. The largest movement was seen in cold rolled prices but hot rolled prices and Galvalume prices also fell during the past week. The one item which did not see erosion was galvanized prices which […]
Steel Market Update received the following letter to the editor from a flat rolled steel service center. With contract negotiations heating up we thought the letter may spark a dialogue between the steel mills and their customers: John, we are a Mid-West Steel Service Center and attended your Steel Market Update Atlanta conference. We gained […]
The new coating extras are creating a bit of a bumpy ride for some mills/customers while others are adapting and moving forward. This is something we will need to watch over the next few weeks as we transition to the new extras. Our sources are advising us that some mills are making adjustments to base […]
Flat rolled steel prices continue to slip lower as the various indexes watched by Steel Market Update begin to come to a consensus as the spreads between the indexes shrink. Platts dropped their benchmark hot rolled price by $5 per ton and CRU by $2 per ton. SteelBenchmarker did not report prices this week as […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to slip this past week according to our analysis of the various flat rolled price indexes we follow on a regular basis. The benchmark hot rolled average dropped $6 per ton to $671 per ton with SMU being the lowest at $665 and SteelBenchmarker the highest at $677 per ton. […]
The following is a recap of the data compiled during the month of August 2014. For the second month in a row our SMU Price Momentum Indicator remained at Neutral as steel prices have been relatively stable with the $673 average up $6 from the July average. However, by the end of the month our […]
Based on our conversations with steel buyers and analysis of the data we received from steel mills, service centers and end users, we saw some slippage in flat rolled steel prices this week. Not enough to change our position (Neutral) on the market. But, there was enough to make us sit up and take notice. […]
The spreads between the various steel price indexes watched on a weekly basis by Steel Market Update have been shrinking. With the exception of plate (which had price increase announcements during the week) and SMU cold rolled, all of the other flat rolled steel price indices either moved sideways or moved lower this past week. […]
The following article about Futures trading is from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk, LLC. Andre will be one of our speakers at our 4th Steel Summit Conference as he speaks to the influence Chinese futures trading has on commodity prices. He mentions iron ore trading (China) in the article below: OK, so we’re at […]
“Everyone wants business,” is how the conversation began with one of our Midwest service center sources. “Everyone has steel to sell,” is what he told us. However, he admitted that the bottom has not dropped out of this market. That feeling of concern was heard in a number of places. Flat rolled steel prices seem […]
U.S. Steel has begun to inform their customers of their intention to raise their zinc coating extras effective October 1, 2014. Unlike Nucor, USS did not go back to their 2011 price extras. Based on our quick analysis, the under .020” thru .018” G90 extra is being increased by $1.05/cwt or 11.3 percent. The new […]
Spreads between the indexes are beginning to narrow as the market has been trending sideways (with a slight upward bias) for a number of weeks. Benchmark hot rolled numbers were up $2 per ton due to SteelBenchmarker reporting new numbers this past week (SteelBenchmarker only reports prices twice per month). The average of all the […]
We spent the last two days canvassing as many buyers and mill sellers of steel as we possibly could. Our goal was to gather enough information so we could speak to the development of this market and the direction prices should go from here. What we found is a market that is perhaps stronger than […]
We are starting to learn that the holdup on the flat rolled dumping suits has been due to the desire by the domestic mills to protect the automotive companies. If suits are filed look for exclusions on I.F. steels and potentially coils wider than 60 inches. We have heard from both mill and non-mill sources […]
Flat rolled steel price indexes followed by Steel Market Update on a weekly basis saw prices continuing to be firm to slightly higher on most products. Benchmark hot rolled coil prices averaged $676 per ton, up $2 per ton compared to the previous week’s average. SMU HRC pricing remained stable at $675 per ton while […]
Today’s hot rolled coil futures (HRC) article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. In his article he will review the S&P 500, copper pricing, crude oil pricing, steel, iron ore and ferrous scrap futures trading: Well the S&P 500 reached its high […]
Last week flat rolled steel prices moved higher by modest amounts, $5 per ton or less with a couple exceptions (see table below). Since the beginning of July our SMU steel price index has seen hot rolled prices move higher by $15 per ton, cold rolled prices by $10, galvanized prices by $10 and Galvalume […]
At the end of each month Steel Market Update takes a look back at the data we have compiled and does a quick analysis for our readers. This is different than our SMU Key Market Indicators which is also included in this newsletter. Benchmark hot rolled coil prices averaged $667 per ton (SMU) for the […]