Service Centers
January 11, 2015
Service Center Spot Steel Prices Trending Toward Capitulation?
Written by John Packard
In each and every flat rolled steel market survey Steel Market Update conducts, we ask both the flat rolled steel service centers and their manufacturing customers to comment on service center spot pricing. SMU believes spot prices being touted by the steel distributors is a microcosm of the health of the greater steel industry.
We also believe that at a certain point in time the negativity of the service centers reaches a point of capitulation – where it seems as though every distributor is dumping steel into the marketplace at lower and lower pricing. In the past we have identified “capitulation” to be that point when approximately 70 percent of the service centers are actually reporting their company as actively lowering spot prices to their customers.
