Service Centers
February 4, 2014
Spot Flat Rolled Sheet Prices: Distributors Changing Direction?
Written by John Packard
We are beginning to capture signs of a fracture in the resolve of the service centers to push higher steel prices into their end user accounts. With flat rolled steel spot prices trading within a fairly narrow and stable range for the past 10 weeks according to our SMU price indices, it should not come as a surprise that distributors have potentially reached the end of their abilities to move spot carbon sheet prices higher.
According to our mid-January steel market analysis, manufacturing companies reported service centers in ever growing numbers moving away from higher spot pricing (55 percent during the first week of January vs. 24 percent this past week) toward either stable (67 percent) or declining prices (9 percent up from 4 percent ).
