Flat rolled prices dropped $5 to $10 per ton this week as the psychology of the market works against the sellers of steel. Hot rolled continues to be the weakest of the flat rolled products due to the energy, mining and agricultural markets. Other products are faring better (regarding demand) but not to the point […]
The HARDI wholesalers held their monthly galvanized steel conference call earlier today. During the call the wholesalers provided insights into business conditions affecting the companies and discussed the status of the flat rolled steel markets. HARDI wholesalers supply galvanized sheet and coil steels to the mechanical contractors associated with residential and commercial construction in North […]
We will begin our next flat rolled steel market analysis with an invitation to participate in our questionnaire going out at 8 AM on Monday morning. If you receive an invite please take a few minutes to click on the link and complete the questionnaire. Steel Market Update will be moving our headquarters over the […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been dropping lately and Steel Market Update (SMU) can no longer ignore the direction of market prices at this time. We are, therefore, adjusting our Price Momentum Indicator to Lower from Neutral, meaning that our expectation is for prices to move lower over the next 30 days. There are a […]
Steel Market Update participates in a monthly steel conference call with HARDI wholesalers who supply galvanized sheet and coil products to the HVAC mechanical contractors across the United States and Canada. The wholesalers also supply other products such as air conditioners, furnaces and many other products to companies working on residential, multi-family and commercial construction […]
Steel buyers are reporting a weakening steel market in both our phone conversations as well as through our survey responses. SMU reported a drop in hot rolled coil prices last week of $5 per ton and we are reporting an additional $5 per ton move lower this week. We are seeing weakness in all products. […]
Steel Market Update publisher, John Packard, participated in the monthly galvanized steel conference call held by HARDI for their wholesalers and other HARDI member companies. The wholesalers supply galvanized steel sheet and coil to the mechanical contractors who are involved in the residential and commercial HVAC markets. The group discussed a number of key market […]
This morning, Steel Market Update participated in the monthly HARDI galvanized steel conference call. Each month HARDI hosts a conference call amongst the wholesalers who supply galvanized sheet and coil to the mechanical contractors who are producing the duct work and air handling systems for both residential and commercial construction. We discussed in the previous […]
On Friday, Steel Market Update (SMU) adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Higher to Neutral. Now why did we go and do that? We have been stuck in a very tight trading range on most flat rolled steels since late April of this year. Benchmark hot rolled, which is used by most in the […]
When asked to report on how steel mill pricing was this past week, one coating mill told Steel Market Update, “Really nothing. It wasn’t up, nor down in my opinion. We are booking steadily. But people still have inventory so nobody is desperate or in a bind. Good lead time but not enough panic to […]
Earlier today (Tuesday, June 23rd) HARDI sponsored their monthly galvanized steel conference call. On the call were HVAC wholesalers who sell galvanized steel sheet and coil to the HVAC mechanical contractors around the United States and Canada. Also on the call were a number of galvanized steel service centers and manufacturing companies, all associated with […]
Steel Market Update participated in the monthly galvanized steel conference call sponsored by HARDI for their wholesalers who supply sheet and coils to the HVAC mechanical contractors. The focus of the conference call is to discuss how the wholesalers see demand and market forces which impact galvanized steel supply and prices. This was the first […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and The Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a forecast to the HARDI members located in the United […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and the Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a quarterly forecast to the HARDI members located in the […]
Service centers and wholesalers are making no bones about it – it is time for the steel mills to raise steel prices. A good example was comments made by incoming Reliance Steel & Aluminum CEO, Gregg Mollins during last week’s earnings conference call: ” I think personally we expect a price increase in the not […]
We saw a mixed market for flat rolled steel prices this past week with some items moving lower and one (cold rolled) slightly higher than what we reported one week ago. Steel Market Update, which continues to have our Price Momentum Indicator at Neutral, saw the lower end of hot rolled as being $5 per […]
The drop in galvanized steel pricing from the domestic mills is creating havoc at the HARDI wholesalers. As one of the wholesalers put it during the HARDI sponsored galvanized steel conference call Steel Market Update participated in earlier today, “Demand is still reasonable. My concern is that we will have a poor second half of […]
We have an article in tonight’s Steel Market Update about a service center which installed a new piece of processing equipment. Earlier today we posted on our website blog an article about Olympic Steel naming Andrew Wolfort general manager of their Schaumburg plant. We are interested in keeping the industry informed of these kinds of […]
The current downward cycle is getting a little “long in the tooth” (old) and there are signs that even with the short lead times and excessive inventories at the service centers the domestic steel mills are not chasing business but rather negotiating for specific pieces of business with known tonnages and want dates. The mills […]
This morning Steel Market Update (SMU) participated in the monthly galvanized steel conference call hosted by HARDI. The conference call is for those HARDI wholesalers who sell galvanized sheet and coil to the HVAC mechanical contractors around the United States and Canada. Since the last conference call held during the later days in February, galvanized […]
We made a mistake in our most recent issue when we referenced $440 as being the low for hot rolled back in June 2009. That was actually the low for the galvanized base price (noted in the HARDI article in that same issue). The low for hot rolled in June 2009 was $380 per ton […]
Once a month, HARDI sponsors a galvanized steel conference call with the wholesalers who sell sheet and coil to the HVAC mechanical contractors. Steel Market Update (SMU) has participated in these informative discussions for a number of years and they are very useful in our understanding of the ebb and flow of both pricing and […]
It is no secret, the U.S. flat rolled steel service centers are over-inventoried and mill spot prices are falling. In order to take advantage of the lower pricing, distributors must move off any excess inventories which Steel Market Update has calculated to be approximately 1.145 million tons as of the end of January. (Note: the […]
Each quarter ITR Economics and HARDI offer a forecast on the construction industry. Steel Market Update provides a summary of that forecast on a national and regional basis. This week we are going to change our format slightly and provide the national forecast summary based on ITR’s Interactive Regional Economic Forecast Webinar. We will provide […]
Flat rolled steel prices have been dropping over the past few weeks and the wholesalers who service the mechanical contractors are concerned as the pace of the price decline quickens. Earlier today Steel Market Update participated in the HARDI sponsored galvanized steel conference call. HARDI (Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration Distributors International) wholesalers supply galvanized sheet and […]
For the past four days Steel Market Update (SMU) has been attending and speaking at the HARDI annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. One of the highlights of the conference were the presentations provided by Alan Beaulieu, one of the principal partners of the Institute for Trend Research (ITR) and the chief economist for HARDI. […]
I always learn new things every time I attend an industry related conference. I find being exposed to industry experts, active steel buyers in one location (with very few to no suppliers around), business owners who feel comfortable in their surroundings, and a few cocktails thrown into the mix, makes for interesting times. I highly […]
Steel Market Update publisher, John Packard, spoke to the Heating, Air-conditioning, Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) conference this afternoon. Many of the HARDI wholesalers and associated companies are involved with galvanized sheet and coil steels. As SMU prepared to speak to the group we realized that many times the industry references benchmark hot rolled prices and […]
Part of my talk at the 2014 HARDI conference was regarding galvanized imports which reached 325,000 net tons in October and appear will be approximately 300,000 tons when the November Census Data numbers are released later this month. To put this into perspective, at this point last year the U.S. received 150,000 net tons and […]
There has been a fair amount of interest being generated regarding our next Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop which will be held in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina on January 20 & 21, 2015. If you go to our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com and click on the Steel 101 link in the Events […]