SMU Data and Models
September 22, 2013
Foreign vs. Domestic Price Spread
Written by John Packard
A majority of the manufacturing companies (57 percent) responding to our most recent steel market survey told us that the spread between foreign and domestic steel is wide enough to justify buying foreign steel. The percentage of manufacturing companies answering this way has increased by 3 percent compared to our results from 30 days ago. Service centers were a little less enthusiastic about foreign with 42 percent reporting foreign prices as being competitive with domestic prices to the point where their company could justify buying foreign steel. However, when compared to our results from 30 days ago the percentage of service centers responding this way has doubled (21 percent).
