All was quiet this past week as steel buyers dreamed of Sugar Plum Ferries, lower prices and better times for the New Year. Mill sales people attended to their families and toasted higher prices and better times in the New Year. All of this means not much happened last week as SMU and Platts kept […]
All of the flat rolled price indices followed by Steel Market Update saw steel prices as continuing their decline but in larger increments than what we have been seeing over the past few weeks. Benchmark hot rolled coil pricing dropped by an average of $11 per ton. Two steel indexes, Steel Market Update and CRU, […]
The good news for the consumer is gasoline prices are closing in on $2.00 per gallon in many areas of the country. The bad news for the steel industry is the drop in oil prices means a slowdown in new drilling, one of the major users of hot rolled coil. The good news for buyers […]
All of the flat rolled steel indexes which reported pricing this past week saw benchmark hot rolled prices as being down and another step closer to touching $600 per ton. From Steel Market Update’s vantage point, the lower end of our range has broken down to $580 per ton ($29.00/cwt). Our HRC average for the […]
All of the flat rolled steel price indices followed by Steel Market Update moved lower this past week. Based on performance and their ability to keep up with the markets, the three key indices are SMU, CRU and Platts which reported benchmark hot rolled price averages as $615, $614 and $615 per ton, respectively. SteelBenchmarker […]
Today’s hot rolled, ferrous scrap and iron ore futures article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and the instructor for Steel Market Update’s Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II workshops. Along with HRC, iron ore and BUS trading. Andre also discusses the S&P 500, copper and crude […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to erode this week as buyers reported an expansion of discounted offers coupled with short mill lead times. Many steel buyers are telling Steel Market Update that their inventories are relatively high, there are new foreign offers out there at “good” prices and that they can sit back and wait […]
Hot rolled prices dropped on all the indexes which reported new pricing this past week. Steel Market Update was down $10 per ton to $620 per ton with CRU ($623) and Platts ($625) coming very close to the SMU number. SteelBenchmarker did not report new pricing this past week as they only report HRC prices […]
The following article on the hot rolled futures market comes to SMU from contributing writer Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading for Kataman Metals. Hot rolled coil futures have been quite inactive the past week due to the Thanksgiving holiday. As activity picks back up, it appears the next move will be lower. The forward […]
With the exception of Platts, all of the other flat rolled steel indexes reported benchmark hot rolled pricing as being down $5-$9 per ton this past week. Our average also declined by $5 per ton and now sits at $637 per ton. With at least one mill offering spot hot rolled at, or below, $600 […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) benchmark hot rolled coil pricing averaged $634 per ton ($31.70/cwt) for the month of November. CRU HRC averaged $635 per ton ($31.75/cwt) while Platts averaged $640 per ton ($32.00/cwt). Hot rolled prices at $630 per ton as of the last week of the month, were $5 per ton lower than where […]
Monday is December 1st. This means we will begin our early December flat rolled steel market survey first thing Monday morning. Look for your invitation around 8 AM ET on Monday. If you receive an invitation please take a few minutes to click on the link and respond to our questionnaire which is housed on […]
It has been a very quiet week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday here in the U.S. on Thursday. A number of service centers advised SMU that the number of inquiries had dramatically fallen off and there isn’t much need to buy steel at this time. The question isn’t so much where are prices this week […]
We ended the article above talking about the tight range we have seen on hot rolled coil over the past 12 months. Total price movement from low to high during that time period has been $65 per ton. The question is, will U.S. hot rolled coil prices break through the low of the past 12 […]
Flat rolled steel prices, as reported by Steel Market Update, Platts, CRU this past week (SteelBenchmarker did not report last week) had mixed results. CRU and SMU have hot rolled prices at $634 and $635 respectively. Platts remains stuck at $640 as they have been for a number of weeks now. SteelBenchmarker did not report […]
Today’s hot rolled, ferrous scrap and iron ore futures article comes to us from Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and the instructor for Steel Market Update’s Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II workshops. Along with HRC, iron ore and BUS trading Andre also discusses the S&P 500, copper and crude […]
Late last week Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our galvanized range to take into consideration the growing number of base prices reaching down to the $35.00/cwt level. Our galvanized range is now $35.00/cwt-$38.00/cwt for new spot orders. Over the weekend we adjusted our hot rolled range to reflect the lower numbers we have been collecting […]
One of the topic of conversations during the Cowen & Company Global Metals, Mining & Materials Conference was the issue of scrap prices versus iron ore and the value of iron “units.” On the first day of the conference, Dan DiMicco former CEO of Nucor, told the audience that iron ore and scrap would come […]
Flat rolled steel prices began to stabilize this past week after having peaked in the middle of August at $675 per ton (hot rolled) and then slowly sliding to a low of $630 per ton during the week ending November 1, 2014. The SMU HRC average actually rose slightly to $635 per ton this past […]
Andre Marshall, well known commodity futures trader, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and instructor for our Managing Price Risk I and II workshops has written today’s HRC futures article. Today he comments on the financial markets, steel, iron ore and ferrous scrap markets. Financial Markets: All time highs again in the stock markets. We are […]
ArcelorMittal defined the flat rolled steel price increases announced earlier last week. In their announcement AM USA management did not announce a $20 per ton increase but rather specific minimum base prices for their sales people. In the process, AM has also made a statement as to where they feel base prices on flat rolled […]
For the majority of the month of October, the SMU Steel Price Momentum Indicator was referencing lower prices for the next 30 to 60 day period. At the end of the month, we revised our Indicator to Neutral due to AK Steel, US Steel and Nucor having made $20 per ton price increase announcements. It […]
Prices dropped on all of the indexes and all of the products followed by Steel Market Update. The average for hot rolled, based on the four indexes, was $641 per ton. Steel Market Update saw the market as being down to an average of $630 per ton just prior to the AK Steel announcement. The […]
Today’s hot rolled coil and ferrous scrap futures article is written by Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading at Kataman Metals. The market seems to have bottomed out with the CRU coming in at $640 yesterday. Positive sentiment has outweighed any negatives in the market with AK Steel recently announcing a price hike of $20/ton […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to erode this past week based on SMU analysis of the CRU, Platts and SteelBenchmarker steel indices for the week ending October 24, 2014. Hot rolled prices now average $645 per ton, down $3 per ton from the prior week. If you remove SteelBenchmarker from the average, since they did […]
On Thursday of this past week Nucor announced their earnings and conducted their quarterly earnings conference call with analysts. SMU has highlighted a number of subjects touched on during the conference call. The following information (minus the headers) was taken directly from The Street transcript of the call: Potential for Light Flat Rolled Trade Cases […]
The following article comes from one of our contributing writers, Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Andre is a well known trader/broker in the hot rolled coil (HRC) and other commodities futures markets. He is also our instructor for the SMU Managing Price Risk I and II workshop series. Tonight Andre speaks to the financial […]
On Friday, Steel Market Update adjusted our hot rolled coil price range to $620-$660 per ton and our average was adjusted to $640 per ton. All of the other indexes also moved lower on hot rolled coil and the average of the four steel price indexes moved lower by $8 per ton to $647 per […]
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 […]