The World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement went into effect on February 22, 2017. The agreement seeks to reduce the “red tape” for traders involved in moving goods across borders. The agreement, as summarized by the WTO, includes “improvements to the availability and publication of information about cross-border procedures and practices, improved appeal rights for […]
The rumors about March ferrous scrap prices have been flying ever since prices rebounded early in February from the initial down $10-$30 per gross ton we saw in the early negotiations. As the month of February continued scrap prices rebounded and, in some cases, returned to levels seen in January. As we prepared for March […]
Please see the end of this report for an explanation of data sources. The Broad Index value of the US $ is reported several days in arrears by the Federal Reserve, the latest value published was dated February 17th (Figure 1). The dollar had a recent peak of 128.963 on January 3rd which was the […]
Freight shipment by various transportation modes seems to be moving fairly well as February winds down. Seaborne freight is improving and barge traffic is resuming normal operations after the winter. Trucking saw some seasonal slowdown after the holidays and rail traffic was up year over year in recent weeks. The Association of American Railroads welcomed […]
North Star Bluescope Steel reported underlying EBITDA in the first half of FY 2017 of $180.2 million, an increase of 178 percent from 1H FY 2016 . Sales revenue was US$ 598.7 million. The mill operated at 100 percent capacity in the first half and benefited from lower conversion costs, particularly in utilities. Shipments for […]
This report summarizes total steel supply from 2003 through December 2016 and year on year changes. It then compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison of the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron […]
This is the second in a series of new reports on global trade of hot rolled and cold rolled products. In the future these articles (the first one was published on Tuesday, February 14th) will be part of our Premium level products and will be published in our Premium supplemental newsletter. If you would like […]
The Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) called on the Trump administration to create a strategy that will evaluate trade violations impacting the entire industrial metals supply chain. MSCI president and CEO Robert Weidner said trade enforcement measures must protect not only the mills but also distributors, fabricators and processors in the supply chain. MSCI has […]
EUROFER, the European Steel Association, recently released its Economic and Steel Market Outlook report for 2017-2018. The Association is expecting steel demand to continue its recovery in 2017 and 2018 but is concerned about the rise of unfairly traded imports. Apparent steel consumption stabilized in the second half of 2016 after rising 3 percent year […]
We believe that miss-information (or lack of) about regional import volumes is often used to influence purchase decisions. Our intent with this analysis of tonnage by district of entry is to describe in detail what is going on in a company’s immediate neighborhood and thus provide a negotiating advantage for our premium subscribers. We are […]
The following article was prompted by a report coming out of a consulting group working for Greenpeace. SMU understands they have a political agenda but we wanted to provide our readers with what was being said and then some commentary at the end from one of our trading friends located in Asia who works with […]
We believe that to understand the forces acting on the US steel import market it is necessary to examine global trade flows. We present here episode one of our investigation into the global trade of hot rolled coil and cold rolled coil and the US’s position in the big picture. The source of this data […]
According to the latest data released from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of December 2016 was 8,622,171 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. December apparent […]
Licensed data for January was reported by the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department on January 7th. An explanation of the methodology that we at SMU use to analyze the trade data is given at the end of this piece. All volumes in this analysis are reported in short tons. Total rolled […]
December steel exports totaled 726,847 net tons (659,385 metric tons), down 0.3 percent over November but up 0.2 percent from December 2015. This is the lowest export level seen since December 2015 when 658,362 tons were exported. Total December figures are below the thee month moving average (average of October, November, and December 2016 figures) […]
The following article was originally published by Daniel Pearson, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute on January 18, 2017. Mr. Pearson will be one of our speakers at this year’s SMU Steel Summit Conference: Wilbur Ross has accomplished impressive business turnarounds during his career. His efforts in the steel, textile and automotive parts industries demonstrate […]
Following the DOC determination of AD/CVD duties on imports of stainless steel products, China issued a statement expressing its disappointment that the United States continues to follow its path of protectionism. “China is disappointed that the United States continued to launch high taxes on Chinese steel export products and calls into question the unfair way […]
The JP Morgan Global PMI remained steady at 52.7 in January. Global manufacturing production increased for the fifty-first consecutive month according to data collected IHS Markit. Faster expansion was noted in the US, Eurozone and UK. Manufacturing expansion slowed in Japan in January and contraction was registered in South Korea, Brazil, Turkey and Greece. At […]
Please see the end of this report for an explanation of data sources. The Broad Index value of the US $ is reported several days in arrears by the Federal Reserve, the latest value published was dated January 20th (Figure 1). The dollar had a recent peak of 128.9627 on January 3rd which was the […]
The headline report of GDP growth in Q4 came in at 1.88 percent a decline from 3.53 percent in the third quarter. GDP is measured and reported in chained 2009 dollars and in the first estimate of Q4 was $16.805 trillion. The growth calculation is misleading because it takes the quarter over quarter change and […]
The Keystone XL Pipeline was given approval by the new administration through executive order last Tuesday. Since that time there has been a flurry of speculation on what kind of benefit building the pipeline will provide to the U.S. steel Industry. “We are — and I am — very insistent that if we’re going to […]
As January comes to a close there have been plenty of changes in the U.S. with the new administration taking office and a flurry of cabinet nominations and trade decisions that could affect shipping in the U.S. and globally. Wilbur Ross is slated by the new president to lead the Department of Commerce, Robert Lighthizer […]
The Associated Steel Distributors regional meeting in Detroit on January 19 very appropriately focused on the automotive industry. The meeting was held during the last weekend of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit where a vast array of technological innovation was showcased through virtual reality, simulators and presentation of current models and concept […]
Wilbur Ross, Trump nominee for Commerce Secretary, talked tariffs on China during Wednesday’s confirmation hearings. The billionaire investor, who was instrumental in turning around ailing steel mills such as LTV Steel in 2002, appears to be a solid supporter of President-elect Trump’s strong-arm approach to trade. “One of the things that we do need very […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC) steel and financial futures markets was written by Jack Marshall of Crunch Risk LLC. Here is how Jack saw trading over the past week: Steel It has been an active week even with the CME closed for Martin Luther King Day. This past week we have […]
November steel exports totaled 729,391 net tons (661,693 metric tons), down 4.8 percent over October but up 2.4 percent from November 2015. This is the lowest export level seen since December 2015 when 658,362 tons were exported. Total November figures are below the thee month moving average (average of September, October, and November 2016 figures) […]
Chinese finished steel exports are beginning to drop month over month. In December, finished steel exports were down about 4 percent from November to 7.8 million tonnes. In comparison to a year ago, December exports had fallen approximately 27 percent from a record 112.4 million tonnes. Looking at the data by quarter finished steel exports […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) has released Final Census numbers on foreign steel imported into the United States through November 2016 and has updated license data for the month of December 2016. This provides us with our first look at imports for the year so we can do a comparison against 2015 to see […]
This article was previously published on Wednesday, January 11th for our Premium level members. We are sharing this article with our Executive level members as we thought it would be interesting to look at our 2016 import analysis and then be aware that we have much more data available in our website for our Premium […]
According to the latest data released from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of November 2016 was 8,144,758 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports, then subtracting total US steel exports. November apparent […]