HARDI Steel Buyers “Cautious” Regarding Price Announcement

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 service center spot pricing and trends, demand trends and other issues which impact their ability to conduct business.

With the AK Steel announcement having been made on Monday the issue of price increases and what the other domestic steel mills would do next was a topic of discussion. It was the opinion of one of the large service centers who also participates on the call on a regular basis, that the domestic lead times “are not great” but the mills are hitting a “breaking point where their numbers are at a point where they can’t allow them to collapse.” This service center termed the increases that he felt was coming as an opportunity for the mills to “reset” their numbers. “They are not piling on to the $100-$110 in increases they already announced but rather only on top of what they were able to collect,” is what he told the wholesalers.