Written by: Sandy Williams The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index registered 55.6 in January, a 5.6 point increase from last month and the highest level since April 2012. Business Activity surged in production to 60.9 and new orders to 58.2, both 10 month highs. Employment registered 58.0, up 4.2 points from December and the largest gain […]
As we made our rounds over the past few days we found a number of the smaller mills who had not yet announced price increases and were continuing to collect orders at the previous prices. We also found a few instances of larger mills continuing to collect prices at the lower end of our scale […]
Written by: Andre Marshall, Crunchrisk Financial Markets The last of the obstacles to an improving economy, the debt ceiling and the spending cuts etc seem to be rolling over. The Republicans have cleverly put in a temporary debt ceiling increase covering us until May which will be after the budget talks in April and the […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) participates in a monthly conference call with HARDI wholesalers who sell galvanized sheet and coil into the HVAC mechanical contractors and related industries for residential and commercial construction applications. The purpose of the call is to discuss steel trends which may impact their regional businesses – this includes domestic mill and […]
As was reported over the past week, Steel Market Update found a number of buyers of varying sizes able to purchase hot rolled coil below $600 in the spot market. We did not find every mill or every region participating in the erosion of the bottom end of our range. What we found is the […]
As Steel Market Update (SMU) checked with various market sources after the AK Steel price announcement we found most of the industry expecting the other domestic steel mills to follow the AK Steel pricing lead. At the same time, most buyers expect the net result to be an end to the current slide in pricing […]
Based on the weighted results from our most recent steel survey which was conducted this past week, SMU found lead times slipping slightly on all flat rolled products followed by our company. Benchmark hot rolled average lead times declined to 3.38 weeks and are much shorter than the 4.76 weeks measured by the SMU survey […]
On Tuesday, January 15th, Steel Market Update (SMU) began our second steel survey of the New Year. Our surveys are focused on the flat rolled steel market and are conducted by inviting slightly less than 700 companies who are asked to participate by invitation. Of those participating in last week’s survey 48 percent of the […]
For the past seven weeks, Steel Market Update (SMU) Price Momentum Indicator has been stuck in “Neutral” waiting for something to push prices in one direction or another. When we made the adjustment the week of November 27, 2012 from Higher to Neutral our SMU range for hot rolled coil was $620-$660 per ton (average […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued to drift slightly lower as buyers reported a tighter range than what we had seen one week ago. The top end of the range for all of the items declined between $10 and $20 per ton this past week. The net result being our averages adjusted lower by $5 to […]
Mill lead times shrunk on all but Galvalume products according to the results of our most recent SMU steel survey completed this past Friday. On a weighted average basis hot rolled lead times shrunk to 3.42 weeks, cold rolled to 5.25 weeks, galvanized to 5.33 weeks while Galvalume lengthened to 6.17 weeks. We provided the […]
Hot Rolled Coil: SMU Range is $600-$650 per ton ($30.00/cwt-$32.50/cwt) with an average of $625 per ton ($31.25/cwt) fob mill, east of the Rockies. Both the upper and lower end of our range dropped $10 per ton from levels measured one week ago. Our average dropped $10 per ton compared to one week ago. The […]
Have tons to buy? Negotiate… What price you will pay for steel at the beginning of January will depend on a number of variables – but one thing is for certain – if you have tons to buy it is best to negotiate with your suppliers. At least that is what our sources have been […]
Written by: Sandy Williams The JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI rating increased to 50.2 in December from 49.6 last month according to data released in a composite index produced by JPMorgan and Markit in association with ISM and IFPSM. It is the first time the index has been above the neutral mark of 50.0 since […]
Most of the month of December was spent treading water as flat rolled prices essentially ended the month where they began as the market searched for a clear direction. The discussion for the entire month had been the same as what it has been over the past twenty-four hours – the fiscal cliff and the […]