Based on our channel checks over the Holidays we found little to no movement in flat rolled steel prices as buyers sat on the sidelines (or were on vacation) waiting for the New Year to begin. Steel Market Update published our latest prices on Tuesday afternoon in our website. Here is how we are seeing […]
SMU Price Momentum Indicator ended the month of December where it began, indicating higher flat rolled steel prices over the next 30 days. The domestic steel mills did not disappoint as they raised base price levels to $35.00/cwt on hot rolled and $40.50/cwt on cold rolled and coated (plus extras, FOB mill) for the mills […]
The Empire State Manufacturing Index showed disappointing manufacturing conditions for December. The survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported the general index at 1.0, up three points from November but indicating almost no change in activity for the month. The future outlook index was slightly less optimistic than November with all indices […]
Flat rolled steel prices remained range bound over the past few days due to the Holidays and most buyers being out of the office. At the same time, U.S. Steel, NLMK USA, Nucor and ArcelorMittal USA have all come out with new base price guidance for new orders. The expectation from most buyers is for […]
This past week we saw little movement in pricing on most flat rolled steel products due to the Holidays and a general lack of new orders flowing through the system. Benchmark hot rolled is in a fairly tight range at $667 on the low side (CRU) to $675 on the high side (Platts/Steelbenchmarker). The hot […]
With the announcements by NLMK USA, Nucor and ArcelorMittal USA on Monday, it is quite clear that the flat rolled steel mills are marching to the same drummer when it comes to carbon sheet pricing. All of the announcements made on Monday reflected the same base price levels: Hot Rolled = $35.00/cwt ($700 per ton) […]
On Monday, December 16th we began collecting data for our last Steel Market Update flat rolled steel market analysis. The way the system works is over the years Steel Market Update (SMU) has vetted a number of companies (many of whom John Packard did business with in the past). Our current list has approximately 600 […]
Steel Market Update continues to expand and one of the areas we are looking to expand into is the world of plate. As we enter the New Year we will begin indexing discreet plate pricing as we do hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels. We also are changing our CPI (Comparison Price Indices) […]
Lead times continue to be longer than normal with hot rolled averaging more than 4 weeks (4.23 weeks), cold rolled exceeding 6 weeks (6.04 weeks), galvanized at 6.51 weeks and Galvalume averaging 6.83 weeks. All of the flat rolled steel lead times measured this week are extended compared to last year during the middle of […]
Steel Dynamics issued its fourth quarter 2013 guidance on Tuesday reporting earnings in the range of $0.21 to $0.25 per diluted share, below analyst estimates ranging from $0.26 to $0.31. SDI announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.11 per share. Earnings are expected to be comparable to those of third quarter. Higher steel pricing is […]
U.S. Steel announced a price increase on Monday and the market appears to be cautiously optimistic as we enter the end of 2013 and look out into the New Year. The announcement itself was termed a “non-event” by one of the construction related steel mills with whom we spoke this afternoon as increases had previously […]
Shipments of sheet and strip products in the first 10 months of 2013 were 29,178,320 tons, a decrease of 0.3 percent from the same period last year. Shipments in the three months August through October averaged 4,216,504 tons / month, an increase of 2.4 percent from the previous 3 months May through July and an […]
Steel buyers advised Steel Market Update that there has been very little movement in flat rolled steel prices this week. We did make a correction to the range on galvanized coils adjusting the lower end of the range to $38.50/cwt based on the data we collected directly from buyers this week. We also saw small […]
Prepainted flat rolled imports increased in October over August for all products followed by SMU, especially for galvanized and electro-galvanized. Compared to the same month one year ago, prepainted imports in October significantly increased for all products. As you can see by our table below – prepainted cold rolled (CR) imports increased by 376 NT […]
One of the keys when determining the strength and or weakness of the flat rolled steel markets is through what is being reported by buyers regarding mill lead times. We have found our analysis, through the use of our steel market survey, provides a better look at the average lead times and changes to those […]
Based on our early December steel market analysis we found some weakening in the coated steel indices. Hot rolled and cold rolled managed to maintain their averages but we did collect a few lower numbers on those products as well. There was enough data on coated to drop both galvanized and Galvalume averages from what […]
As mentioned in an earlier article, prices increased during the month of November as two mills officially raised prices by $20 and $30 per ton. The AK Steel announcement called for hot rolled base prices to be a minimum of $35.50/cwt and Severstal placed their base price levels for HRC at $35.00/cwt. When the month […]
ArcelorMittal (AM) and their 50/50 joint venture partner Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation (NSSMC) reached an agreement with ThyssenKrupp AG to acquire the ThyssenKrupp Steel USA steel mill located in Calvert, Alabama. The purchase was valued at $1.55 billion for the 4.3 million tons of flat rolling capacity along with 1 million tons of […]
ArcelorMittal (AM) and their 50/50 joint venture partner Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation (NSSMC) reached an agreement with ThyssenKrupp AG to acquire the ThyssenKrupp Steel USA steel mill located in Calvert, Alabama. The purchase was valued at $1.55 billion for the 4.3 million tons of flat rolling capacity along with 1 million tons of […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) follows four other indices besides our own and provides the data to our members on a weekly basis. Recently, we asked our readers if they would like for us to continue providing CRU data and the responses indicated there continues to be an interest in their numbers. We have agreed to […]
As we move closer to the Thanksgiving Holiday we are finding flat rolled steel prices as being essentially “firm” compared to this time last week. Steel buyers have been consistently referencing prices as the same as one week ago to maybe $10 per ton higher or lower depending on the mill and product being quoted. […]
Last week I discussed how Steel Mills calculate thickness and width extras. This week we will look at Mill coating extras for Galvanized and Galvalume coated steel coil. I am going to refer again to US Steel’s published list of price extras which you can find on their website. Other mills tend to have similar […]
There is a lot of interest in what direction spot flat rolled prices will move from here. It appears there is a split between some of the domestic steel mills regarding the most recent price announcements made by AK Steel and Severstal NA. We understand that spot prices on hot rolled are hitting a bit […]
Lead times shrunk on three of the four flat rolled products followed by Steel Market Update. We saw hot rolled lead times fall back to 4.0 weeks from 4.36 weeks reported at the beginning of November. We also saw cold rolled lead times retreat to 6.0 weeks from 6.39 weeks and Galvalume shrunk to 6.22 […]
Flat rolled steel prices rose modestly this past week with averages adjusting higher by anywhere from $5 to $15 per ton. We are seeing a slightly larger spread between the highs and the lows. We are also seeing a larger spread in lead times out of the domestic steel mills based on our survey results […]
Hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume spot prices continued to remain firm this past week – even as many of the domestic mills have not “officially” announced support for the price increases made by AK Steel and Severstal NA on the 7th of November. According to Steel Market Update (SMU) sources in both the […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) released Final Census Data on steel imports for the month of September. Total imports (all products) were reported to be 2,818,675 net tons which is down slightly from the 2,878,367 net tons received during the month of August. Compared to last September (2012) there were 215,624 more tons received […]
With two mills announcing price increases this past week and the balance either following on a verbal basis or still considering what their position will be has made this week a transitional week. One where new prices are being quoted and customers move to place previously quoted orders – or are sitting back and waiting. […]
According to our latest steel market survey results, lead times have begun to move out on all of the flat rolled products scrutinized by Steel Market Update. Hot rolled lead times extended from 4.07 weeks to 4.36 weeks, cold rolled moved from 6.10 weeks to 6.38 weeks, galvanized moved from 6.26 weeks to 6.39 weeks […]
Spot flat rolled steel prices remained relatively stable compared to where they were at this point in time last week. Hot rolled was down $5 per ton however, we do not consider this to be a significant change. We caught a few more numbers this week at the lower portion of our range. However, the […]