Steel Products Prices North America
February 8, 2015
Comparison Price Indices: Catch Up as Spread Between Indexes Shrinks
Written by John Packard
The range between indexes shrank this past week as benchmark hot rolled coil price averages dropped to $541 per ton, with SMU and Platts now even at $540 per ton and CRU slightly higher at $543 per ton. We did not include SteelBenchmarker pricing as they only produce pricing twice per month and we have decided to only use numbers from those who actually index the items in the week being analyzed.
Cold rolled continues to buck historical norms as our average is $142 per ton which is higher than the normal $100-$120 per ton premium for the product. Coated products are similarly out of whack with historical norms. We would expect CR and coated to revert back to more normal spreads over benchmark hot rolled in the coming weeks.
