October was the second month in a row where SMU had our Pricing Momentum Indicator pointing toward lower pricing. SMU reports hot rolled coil, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume pricing every Tuesday evening. During October we produced our steel prices indices four times. HRC was reported at $420 per ton the first Tuesday of the […]
Flat rolled steel prices continued their downward spiral this past week based on our analysis of the four steel indexes followed by Steel Market Update. We will be watching prices closely over the next week or two to see if we breach the psychological $400 per ton number on benchmark hot rolled coil. We have […]
During our Steel Summit Conference in September, Lisa Reisman the founder and Executive Editor of Metal Miner told those in attendance that the short term outlook for commodities and steel was bearish. She provided a number of support and resistance price points on a number of steel products as well as aluminum and zinc. In […]
On Tuesday of this week, SMU produced an article about the recent changes in coating extras by most (by not all) of the domestic mills. Within 30 minutes of publishing the article we knew we had made a couple errors of omission as we had The Techs with different extras that their parent company: Steel […]
Earlier this year US Steel adjusted their coating extras and the long wait began for other mills to follow suit. In the meantime, spot zinc prices dropped below $0.74 per pound before bouncing back to $0.82 per pound over the past few days. Over the past couple of weeks most of the domestic mills have […]
Flat rolled steel prices were mixed over this past week based on data reported in our survey as well as the channel checks we were able to make during these past two hectic days. We are aware of offers on hot rolled under $400 per ton but we have not reported the numbers as readily […]
We ended the month of September recognizing that not only have steel prices been falling but the Momentum behind pricing turned negative during the month. Our SMU Price Momentum Indicator is now pointing toward Lower prices to be seen in the coming month or longer. Sentiment, another Key Market Indicator, has been dropping as you […]
Flat rolled steel prices remained “flexible” over the past week. During our conversations with steel buyers (and steel mills) we learned that the best prices were being offered on tonnage tied to an actual order. One of the big issues we face as we try to develop fair and reasonable price ranges is how do […]
After zinc spot pricing peaked in May of this year at $1.10 per pound, it has been steadily moving lower, closing at $0.7363 per pound at the end of trading on Monday, September 28th. Steel Market Update has been writing about the drop in spot LME zinc (as well as aluminum which impacts Galvalume, Aluminized […]
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 […]
The key word that we are hearing from steel buyers and mills alike is the market is QUIET, very, very quiet. Lead times referenced continue to be short. Inventories continue to be high. We did not collect any huge changes in our key product averages. We are hearing that extras on many products are being […]
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 […]
Our Steel Buyers Sentiment Index dropped for the second month in a row, however, our 3-month-moving-average rose slightly. Our Sentiment Index has been trailing what we reported during 2014 as business growth has been tempered this year versus last. Flat rolled steel prices dropped slightly from the end of last month through the end of […]
Recently Steel Market Update produced information related to the changes in the LME spot price for zinc and the costs associated with applying the Zinc to steel substrate in order to make galvanized product. It has been normal for the domestic steel mills to react to significant adjustments in the cost of zinc by adjusting […]
In early May 2015 zinc spot price on the LME was trading at, or close to, $1.10 per pound. In early April 2015 US Steel adjusted their coating extras while the rest of the mills remained at the levels they set in early 4th Quarter 2014 when zinc was trading in the range of $1.00-$1.10 […]
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. […]
It was very sad to hear of the passing of John Correnti earlier today. Mr. Correnti at 68 years old still had much to give to the steel industry and his Big River Steel mill will only be but one part of his legacy. The steel industry is buzzing on the news and I have […]
The flat rolled steel trading community has been hit and hit hard by the filing of antidumping trade suits on galvanized, Galvalume (zinc-aluminum) . As one trader put it to us earlier this week, “Business as usual has been blown up for the traders.” A number of traders spoke to SMU about the scope of […]
There are so many dumping suits being filed at the same time that it is difficult to keep track of the various dates as to when actions will be taken either by the US Department of Commerce of the US International Trade Commission (ITC). There are 5 major groups of suits which affect the flat […]
Six domestic steel mills joined together to file a hot rolled trade suit today. This is now the third such suit since the filing against corrosion resistant (galvanized & zinc-aluminum or Galvalume) on June 3rd and the cold rolled petition of a couple of weeks ago. With the HR case the mills have hit the […]
On June 3rd Nucor, US Steel, ArcelorMittal USA, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics and California Steel filed antidumping and countervailing duty petition against China, Taiwan, India, South Korea and Italy on corrosion-resistant steels. To put this into layman’s terms the domestic mills filed a dumping (AD) and CVD suit on producers of galvanized and Galvalume (zinc-aluminum) […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated license data for foreign steel imports for the month of July. Based on the just released data it appears July imports will be approximately 200,000 net tons higher than what was received during the month of June. However, when looking at imports from a 3 month moving average and […]
Flat rolled steel prices, and the momentum associated with steel price movement, have been stuck for quite some time as you can see by our SMU Price Momentum at the top of the table below. As a result, our benchmark hot rolled price average is $3 per ton higher than what we reported at the […]
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 […]
This piece, written by Peter Wright, combines our own data analysis with recently published opinions about the iron ore, metallurgical coal and zinc markets that we find credible. Iron Ore: The Platts IODEX of 62% Fe delivered North China recovered to $61.25 per dry metric ton (dmt) on May 22nd but by July 10th had […]
Lisa Reisman, Founder and Executive Editor for Metal Miner, published their July basic metals forecast which includes zinc, aluminum, copper, lead, tin, etc. The July forecast is available to the public. Just click here to go to the Metal Miner site where you can download their full report. This is the last free report so […]
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 […]
June ended the same way it started with our SMU Price Momentum Indicator pointing toward higher flat rolled steel prices. This is now the second month in a row where our Momentum Indicator has been pointing up. Our Future Steel Buyers Sentiment Index averaged +61.5 for the month of June. However, the last report we […]
We have seen many of the indices either produced by or followed by Steel Market Update (SMU) were falling during the first few months of 2015 before stabilizing and beginning to rebound by the end of the first six months 2015. Not everything is reacting in unison so we thought we would point out a […]
The Department of Commerce said Wednesday that it will proceed on AD/CVD investigations of imports of corrosion-resistant steel products from China, India, Italy, Korea, and Taiwan. A petition to investigate the products was filed on June 3, 2015 by US Steel, Nucor, ArcelorMittal USA, AK Steel, Steel Dynamics, and California Steel Industries. The products covered […]