Worthington Industries posted net sales of $699.8 million and net earnings of $23.2 million for second quarter 2016 ending November 30, 2015. CEO John McConnell called it a “solid performance for the quarter in the face of some market weakness.” Sales were down 19.7 percent compared to the prior year’s second quarter as result of […]
Manufacturing activity in the New York area declined for the fifth consecutive month in December. The rate of decline slowed somewhat as indicated by the headline general business index of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey, climbing six points to register -4.6. The new orders continued to fall to an index reading of -5.1. Shipments, however, […]
Union workers at Allegheny Technologies have been locked out of the company for more than four months after balking at concessions in the company’s final proposal. The lockout was an insult to USW workers who agreed to earlier concessions to bring a $1.2 billion steel rolling mill to Brackenridge, Pa. The mill was considered vital […]
This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison showing the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce with analysis by SMU. Table 1 shows both […]
A thank you to Keith Gunter of McElroy for sharing his annual Christmas poem for the steel industry with us. If you have anything you would like to share (tastefully) with the industry please feel free to forward them to my attention: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com We just confirmed our last couple of speakers for our new Leadership […]
The House passed the long-awaited customs bill by a 256-158 margin on Friday. The conference report of the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (H.R.644) includes the ENFORCE act that provides new measures sought after by the steel industry to address evasion of antidumping and countervailing duties. The bill will head to the Senate for […]
We will conduct our mid-December flat rolled steel market analysis (survey) beginning on Monday of this week. If you are on the invite list, please take a few moments to click on the link (button) and respond to our online questionnaire. If you were on the invite list in the past and for some reason […]
The rumblings of a price increase have been building for a couple of weeks now as mills like SDI (Butler) and Nucor (Berkeley) have been quietly asking for higher steel prices from their customers prior to any announcements being made. On Tuesday we traded emails with a service center executive who told us, “While rumblings […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) has been analyzing service center spot pricing based on reports from manufacturing and distribution respondents to our flat rolled steel market questionnaire. SMU canvassed the market last week and we believe that the results suggests an uptick in spot pricing will come soon. Manufacturing companies responding to our survey had 90 […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analysis of non-farm employment reported on Friday that 211,000 jobs were added in November, which was in line with economist’s consensus expectations. Both September and October were revised up by a total of 38,000. The three month moving (3MMA) of gains through November was 218,000. The unemployment rate, U3, […]
The following article was written by Xavier Boucherat and appeared in the Q4 2015 issue of Automotive Megatrends Magazine and is being reprinted by Steel Market Update with permission. It may be lighter, but aluminium is fundamentally a quick fix, and OEMs currently using aluminium will convert those parts back to steel to reduce mass […]
Mexican steelmaker, TYASA will begin construction of a Castrip facility at its Ixtaczoquitlan site near Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico. The excess melt capacity of TYASA’s Quantum Furnace will supply the Castrip thin-strip casting process. TYASA expects the new facility to have a production capacity of 500,000 tons of thin-gauge, high-strength, sheet steel that will supply local […]
Each month the Commerce Department issues its Construction Put in Place (CPIP) data, usually on the first working day covering activity two months earlier. October data was released on Tuesday December 1st. Construction Put in Place is based on spending work as it occurs, estimated for a given month from a sample of projects. In […]
Steel Market Update (SMU) Steel Buyers Sentiment Index continued its long slide as buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are less optimistic this week regarding their company’s ability to be successful both in the existing (Current) market as well as three to six months into the future (Future). Respondents to our queries regarding Sentiment […]
Global manufacturing was lackluster in November according to the Global Manufacturing PMI produced by JP Morgan and Markit Economics. The headline index registered 51.2, barely changed from 51.3 in October. Commenting on the survey, David Hensley, Director of Global Economic Coordination at JP Morgan, said: “The global manufacturing PMI survey registered a second consecutive improvement […]
The frustration is beginning to build in the voices of some of the steel buyers as they deal with continuing depreciating flat rolled steel inventories. Prices have been falling since the middle of May 2015 when prices hit a cycle peak of $685 per ton ($34.25/cwt). With our latest adjustment to our hot rolled coil […]
US Steel Corp is realigning its flat-rolled operations and management as part of its Carnegie Way transformation. The flat-rolled facilities will report through three consolidated commercial entities: Automotive Solutions, Consumer Solutions, and Industrial, Service Center and Mining Solutions. “The commercial entities have worked to position our company to be best-in-class in innovation, customer service and […]
It will soon be more expensive to export Chinese steel line pipe to Canada. Canada Border Services Agency released its preliminary determination on dumping and subsidization of steel line pipe exported from China and assigned provisional duties ranging from 71 percent to 396 percent. CBSA estimates that in 2014, 48.8 percent of carbon and alloy […]
The Institute of Supply Management released their November report on December 1st with a value of 48.6 which is the lowest since June 2009. An explanation of the ISM index is given at the end of this piece. After seven straight months of decline the three month moving average (3MMA) of the index had positive […]
New orders for durable goods in October rose by 3.4 percent month on month to $239.976 billion. This result was better than analyst’s expectations, largely as a result of a surge in the transportation component where non-defense aircraft increased by 81 percent. Motor vehicle and parts orders fell 2.9 percent after rising 1.0 percent in […]
The Chicago Business Barometer, or Chicago PMI as it is commonly called, fell 7.5 points in November to 48.7. A decline in new orders put the Index back into contraction for its sixth time this year. The index, an indicator of business demand in the Chicago area, has been volatile throughout 2015 giving less credence […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered in this analysis is currently 36. Please refer to Table 1 for the view of the present situation and the quantitative measure of trends. Readers should […]
Recently, US Steel CEO Mario Longhi was quoted as saying that a Section 201 investigation may be needed to save the domestic steel industry. We want our readers to learn more about what a Section 201 means so we enlisted the help of trade attorney Lewis Leibowitz who was actively involved in the last Section […]
We learned late this afternoon that two domestic steel mills are offering to pay higher prices for shredded scrap from east coast dealers. Shredded scrap buy offers have been made at $180-$185 per gross ton up $10 to $15 per gross ton higher than November numbers (and higher than October numbers since November prices moved […]
The following is the Chicago Federal Reserve statement followed by our own graphical analysis. The CFNAI is an excellent reality check for much of the economic analysis that we routinely provide in The Steel Market Update and is also a reasonably good predictor of the direction of steel demand with a six to nine month […]
Manufacturing slowed in November in the Fifth District, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The composite index for manufacturing activity registered -3, down from -1 in October. Shipments were also negative ending at -2. New orders fell six points to -6. The summary from the Fifth District Survey follows: “Fifth District manufacturing activity […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our mid-November flat rolled steel market analysis. We invited slightly less than 600 individuals representing more than 550 companies to participate. Of those responding 44 percent were connected to manufacturing companies, 41 percent with service centers/wholesalers, 7 percent with trading companies, 4 percent with steel mills, 3 percent with […]
Manufacturing companies reported their service center suppliers dropping spot steel prices this past week. Ninety percent of the manufacturing respondents responding to last week’s SMU flat rolled steel market questionnaire reported service centers as dropping spot pricing. This continues a growing trend for distributors to dump inventory at reduced margins (or at no margins at […]
It used to be that labor unions fought to keep automobile production in the United States. Soon, the biggest “domestic” auto makers will be companies like Honda and Toyota as two of the Big 3 head to Mexico. The UAW labor negotiations concluded Friday with the ratification of agreements with Ford and GM. Part of […]
Twice per month Steel Market Update (SMU) canvasses buyers and sellers of flat rolled steels on a wide variety of topics. One area we probe is how they feel about their individual company’s ability to be successful in today’s economy (Current Sentiment) as well as what they think business conditions will look like three to […]