As you could probably sense from our last issue of Steel Market Update, we are concerned about the amount of foreign steel imports related to the strength of the overall economy. It is one thing to see imports surging when the economy is hot and steel usage is high like we saw in 2004, 2006 […]
Trying to keep up with steel prices and production is proving to be quite an exercise. As we were preparing to publish we were chasing a story about AK Steel having issues with their Ashland blast furnace. At the same time we are gathering data from large buyers that is taking the lower end of […]
Total shipments of sheet and strip products including hot rolled, cold rolled and all coated products were up by 0.8 percent year to date (YTD) compared to the first four months of 2013. In the period January through April compared to the previous three months, the total tonnage was up by 4.8 percent. Comparing YTD […]
Prices dropped on all flat rolled items with the exception of plate which remained the same as one week ago. Hot rolled prices dropped by an average of $5 per ton, cold rolled by an average of $10 per ton, galvanized by $3 per ton and Galvalume by $15 per ton. With the latest drop […]
It was an active month when it came to flat rolled steel prices, at least it was active on a week by week basis. However, when looking at the total month price movement compared against where the previous month ended, then the month of May should be considered rather tame. Hot rolled prices ended the […]
According to the results of our latest flat rolled steel market survey just completed earlier today, mill lead times are slowly beginning to move in (get shorter) on almost all products followed by Steel Market Update. Our respondents reported shorter lead times on hot rolled which were at 4.91 weeks on the 15th of May […]
As mentioned in the article on steel mill lead times included in this newsletter, we tend to see steel mills as more willing to negotiate steel prices as order books begin to get leaner and lead times begin to shrink. We are seeing some retrenchment of lead times and, at the same time, our recent […]
Steel prices are starting to slip. We have found a number of mills making price adjustments to their flat rolled steel offers over the past 24-48 hours. The steel mills are attempting to keep the reductions as minimal and quiet as possible. We are posting reductions in our averages, most occurring due to reductions on […]
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 […]
SMU was told this afternoon that AK Steel has finally “caught up” on their hot rolled and cold rolled orders and, as our source put it today, “was out looking for orders.” There was no reference to AK dropping pricing at this time. We were told the mill was still sold out on coated products. […]
The break for the Memorial Day Holiday here in the United States took some of the pressure off both buyers and sellers of steel as both sides regroup and begin to look at July and beyond flat rolled steel pricing. One steel mill executive told us that they were seeing downward pressure on their mill […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released Preliminary Census Data on steel imports into the United States for the month of April on Friday. As expected steel imports jumped by 20 percent compared to the previous month and by 36 percent year-over-year (days adjusted basis) to 3,726,199 net tons (3.4 million+ metric tons). This is for […]
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 […]
There are questions about potential manipulations of zinc and zinc trading which may have artificially inflated the metal’s price since 2010. Zinc, which is the metal used to coat galvanized steel as well as Galvalume, Galfan and ZAM, is believed to have been manipulated by The London Metal Exchange, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Glencore Xstrata […]
Steel mill lead times remained extended (or from a mill perspective, at reasonable levels) on all products. Benchmark hot rolled lead times averaged 4.91 weeks which is essentially unchanged from the 5.00 weeks reported at the beginning of May. Last year at this time HRC lead times averaged 3.03 weeks. We are running approximately 2 […]
Lead times are reported as being relatively stable compared to two weeks ago, but down slightly from the cycle highs which were achieved within the past two months. Our manufacturing and service center respondents reported the domestic steel mills as becoming more flexible in their flat rolled steel price negotiations. Fifty percent of the manufacturing […]
Lead times are reported as being relatively stable compared to two weeks ago, but down slightly from the cycle highs which were achieved within the past two months. Our manufacturing and service center respondents reported the domestic steel mills as becoming more flexible in their flat rolled steel price negotiations. Fifty percent of the manufacturing […]
Even though there might be an air of expectation that flat rolled steel prices are going to drop, Steel Market Update continues to see a stingy domestic steel industry. Stingy in that they are not quick to give back the gains made over the past eight weeks. SMU noticed that Platts actually moved their hot […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released updated import license data through the 20th of May. If we remember, the license data through the 13th projected that we would see May imports surpass 4.0 million net tons and could go as high as 4.5 million tons. We discounted that number as we have seen previous month’s […]
With the exception of plate, flat rolled steel prices either moved sideways or slightly lower based on the steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. Prices appear to have peaked with benchmark hot rolled averaging $688 per ton, cold rolled $808 per ton, galvanized .060″ G90 $871 per ton and Galvalume .0142″ AZ50, Grade 80 […]
On Wednesday, Steel Market Update adjusted our SMU Price Momentum Indicator to Neutral from Higher. Our Price Momentum Indicator had been pointing toward Higher prices ever since March 25, 2014. Over the past seven weeks, hot rolled coil prices advanced from $630 to a high of $685 per ton based on the Steel Market Update […]
SteelBenchmarker released regional pricing earlier this week, putting the world export hot rolled price at $501 per net ton ($552 per metric ton). The spread between the SMU HR price and the world HR price went from $173 per ton two weeks ago to $184 as of Monday. With an estimated $70 per ton in […]
Steel Market Update published our special data on March steel imports which are produced by product (slabs, plate in coil, hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume), by port of entry and by the country of origin. The full data is available for review by our Premium Level subscribers. Below is a portion of the […]
U.S. and Canadian steel mills continue to keep a firm grip on pricing as supply (production) related problems keep lead times extended on most products. We are seeing the impact of foreign galvanized and Galvalume imports influencing at least one coated steel mill in the South. Domestic buyers appear to be accepting the higher prices […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce released their latest imported steel license data for the month of May 2014. The early indication is for May steel imports to remain at, or above the projected April imports of 3.7 million tons. March final imports came in at 3.2 million which is also our 3 month moving average. […]
Steel Market Update watches foreign steel imports as closely as humanly possible as we look for trends to see how imported steel tonnages relate to past historical averages. We use a monthly average as opposed to a specific monthly number in order to smooth out the numbers and provide a clearer picture. As you can […]
Apparent supply is defined as domestic mill shipments to domestic locations plus imports. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce. The three month moving average of the total tonnage of sheet and strip supply in the 1st quarter was 4,603,548 tons, up from 4,426,649 tons per month in Q4 […]
The domestic steel mills continue to be united in their approach to negotiating flat rolled steel pricing. Based on data collected this week from our flat rolled steel market survey, we found that only 30 percent of the respondents were reporting the domestic mills as willing to negotiate hot rolled steel pricing. This is up […]
Pressure continues on flat rolled steel prices as we saw gains on hot rolled and cold rolled while galvanized and Galvalume remained the same as one week ago. The issue on the coated products and cold rolled to a lesser degree, has been imported steel which is impacting the southern states in two ways. First, […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) flat rolled steel price indices all saw very large double digit increases from the beginning to the conclusion of April 2014. Steel Market Update provides a range for our readers from low to high with the average being our indexed number for the product. We saw benchmark hot rolled prices increasing […]