With the exception of SteelBenchmarker which only supplies steel indices twice per month, all of the other indexes showed flat rolled steel averages as being either the same or down slightly compared to one week ago. Perhaps the most surprising has been Platts which by the end of this past week had taken its benchmark […]
As usual we will spend a few moments taking a look at the month of May in our rear view mirror to see what transpired. SMU Price Momentum Indicator was adjusted during the month from Higher to Neutral as we detected a change in the supply/demand dynamics with the return to full production at US […]
Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II: Strategies & Execution instructor penned the following commentary on the financial, iron ore, scrap and steel markets and the results of trading on the HRC and BUS Futures markets over this past week. More information about futures can […]
Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our Managing Price Risk I and Managing Price Risk II: Strategies & Execution instructor penned the following commentary on the iron ore, scrap and steel markets and the results of trading on the HRC and BUS Futures markets over this past week (as of May 29th). More information […]
What SMU found interesting when looking at flat rolled steel price movement over this past week is Platts, the industry optimist recently, dropped their benchmark hot rolled pricing multiple times as the week progressed. Platts ended the week down $10 per ton to $685 per ton. The $685 is where SMU had its HRC index […]
The following article is written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and the instructor for our brand new Managing Price Risk II: Strategies & Execution workshop. Every week we produce an article about futures trading and, in Andre’s case, about the broader financial markets. Andre begins with the a look at the financial […]
Steel Market Update was the big mover of hot rolled prices this week as we took our average to $685 per ton or $10 per ton higher than one week ago. CRU, Platts and SteelBenchmarker all held their numbers as is for the week. The hot rolled indexes average is up $5 per ton to […]
This past week three of the four flat rolled steel price indexes followed by Steel Market Update (SMU) reported only modest gains in benchmark hot rolled pricing with SMU being the most conservative holding our pricing at the same levels as we had reported the prior week. Platts was the one exception as their hot […]
April is now behind us and it proved to be one interesting month. In looking at the key data we follow on a monthly basis for our readers, SMU Price Momentum Indicator ended the month where it began pointing to higher prices over the near term. SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index ended the month at […]
Financial Markets We are still in the testing of the highs mode, closing in the 1877.50 zone on S+P 500, not much different from a week back. Need to take the out the old high and test 1900 again, otherwise… The Fed tapered on the easing, paring the buying program back $10 bln /month again–think […]
This article is part of a longer article first published on Thursday, May 1st and is written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our Managing Price Risk II instructor: Steel It was a fairly quiet week in futures with 400 lots or 8,000 ST trading most of yesterday on the July date. […]
Steel Market Update is aware that many buyers and sellers of steel have been keyed in on the variations between various flat rolled steel indexes. In the past, Steel Market Update found the spread between our steel index and those of Platts and CRU to generally be negligible ($1-$10 per ton at any one time). […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to rise for the 6th week (according to SMU HRC average) with the benchmark hot rolled coil price average just below $680 per ton and just a few dollars away from the $685 announced by Nucor and a number of other mills at the beginning of April. For the first […]
The following is an analysis of trading over the past week in the financial markets, especially in the hot rolled coil derivatives (futures) and busheling scrap futures markets. This article was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and the instructor for the Steel Market Update Managing Price Risk series including our newest addition: […]
All of the steel indices followed by Steel Market Update saw flat rolled steel prices increase this past week. Benchmark hot rolled coil saw the spread between the indices shrink while the average HR price increased by $17 per ton. Cold rolled was one item where the price spread increased across the various steel indexes […]
Three of the four indices followed by Steel Market Update posted higher flat rolled steel averages through the end of this past week. CRU made the biggest catch-up move taking their benchmark hot rolled index to $654 per ton, up $21 per ton since the previous week. CRU and SMU HRC indices are now within […]
The following article is written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our instructor for our Managing Price Risk and Managing Price Risk 2: Strategies & Execution workshops. Financial Markets: Well we are a fairly precarious point in the S+P 500 and DOW. You might recall that we were headed to 1900 to test […]
Steel Market Update is aware that many buyers and sellers of steel have been keyed in on the variations between various flat rolled steel indexes. In the past, Steel Market Update found the spread between our steel index and those of Platts and CRU to generally be negligible ($1-$10 per ton at any one time). […]
All of the indexes followed by Steel Market Update saw their averages on hot rolled, cold rolled and coated rise this past week (except Platts which remained the same). We are seeing the indices moving higher very quickly as the domestic steel mills firm up their order books at the previously announced $660 level on […]
Every month we track a number of the other steel indexes including the two used the most for contract adjustments: CRU and Platts. We had some interesting results as the month of March closed as all of the indices showed declines (compared to the end of the prior month) in hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized […]
Flat rolled steel pricing momentum reversed course due to the price increase announcement led by ArcelorMittal and followed by virtually all of the domestic and Canadian steel mills. We moved the SMU Price Momentum Indicator first to Neutral and then a week later to Higher in response to the increase announcements and the fact that […]
March was the month that saw the bottom to the flat rolled steel pricing cycle and signs of the first bounce as prices began moving higher. We are finding our monthly analysis of pricing fascinating as many become consumed by the weekly numbers and forget the bigger picture. Weekly gyrations many times equal little change […]
When markets start to move each steel index will pick up the information in different ways. It is important to understand each index methodology, how often the markets are canvassed and how deep the reporting resources are. CRU indices are based on actual verifiable transactions from both steel mills and buyers. Platts takes into consideration […]
Usually the news about price increase announcements is regarding the ability of the steel mills to collect all, or a portion, of the announced flat rolled price increases. With the latest announcements made last week led by ArcelorMittal on Monday and then followed by the rest of the industry as the week progressed, the question […]
Has the flat rolled steel price turn already begun? According to Platts it has, as they moved both hot rolled pricing and cold rolled pricing higher on their index during the later part of the week. Both CRU and SMU reported flat rolled steel prices earlier in the week as either flat or lower than […]
The following article on hot rolled futures (HRC), #1 busheling futures (BUS) as well as information regarding the iron ore spot pricing and futures trading in China is written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk, LLC and the instructor for Steel Market Update’s Managing Price Risk workshop series. Our new: Managing Price Risk 2: […]
The indexes are beginning to spread out, especially on benchmark hot rolled coil pricing. Steel Market Update saw HRC prices down $15 per ton this past week, SteelBenchmarker was $16 per ton lower (but they only produce prices twice per month), CRU down $5 and Platts held the line even with the previous week. The […]
The following article on the financial, hot rolled coil futures, busheling scrap futures and iron ore markets is written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunchrisk, LLC and our Managing Price Risk 1 and 2 instructor. Financial Markets: Today was not a good one, a repeat of last week when the market retraced on the back […]
An ousted president, deadly violence, military insurgence and a possible secession—the crisis in the Ukraine has been moving at an alarming speed in the last several weeks. As the Ukraine struggles to create a new government, economic sanctions are increasingly being considered by the global powers to sway preferred outcomes. The US and the EU […]
Every week Steel Market Update analyzes a number of the flat rolled steel price indexes and provides the analysis to our Executive and Premium Level members. For our Monthly subscribers we produce an analysis of what happened to steel prices in total during the course of, in this case, the month of February. The numbers […]