Steel Products Prices North America
December 5, 2013
Imports of Semi Finished and Hot Worked Steel through November 2013
Written by Peter Wright
Imports of most rolled products and semi finished declined in November. The only exceptions were rail and tin plate. Sheet products were down by 21.5 percent in total but within that group coated products were down over 40 percent. An analysis of the 3 month moving averages (3MMA) of imports results in a very different picture compared to the same period last year and to the previous three month period, June through August. We use the 3MMA to avoid getting too wrapped up in a single month’s numbers, which can be a very misleading exercise and would be the case for the November data. These conclusions include November licensed tonnage (Figure 1). We believe it is valid to include license data in this way because they have a good track record of approximating the final numbers and, at this macro level of analysis, we are concerned more with direction that we are with absolutely accurate numbers.
