Keys to Watch in December

December tends to be a slow month having just come off of a late in the month Thanksgiving Holiday coupled with Christmas and the Jewish Holidays during the month of December. The bottom line is there are a limited number of shipping days during the month.

One of the first things SMU will be watching is scrap and scrap pricing. Early indications are the dealers will hold back scrap rather than sell it to the domestic mills at sideways (no gain) numbers compared to the beginning of November. The early opinions are for modest gains of $10 to maybe as high as $20 per ton. If gains reach $20 per ton this could prompt the domestic mills to reach down into their pricing bag and go for another round of increases.