Steel Products Prices North America
March 31, 2015
SMU Price Ranges & Indices: CR and Coated Adjust to Lower HR Numbers
Written by John Packard
Last week Steel Market Update adjusted our Price Momentum Indicator from Lower to Neutral. We believe that change is coming and the wholesale slide we have seen in flat rolled steel prices will come to an end. We have not yet come to the conclusion that prices will reverse direction, rather that prices on hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume should come back into their historical spread (hot rolled to cold rolled and coated base prices plus $100 to $120 per ton).
We also reported last week that we anticipated prices would level off when hot rolled coil hit $440 per ton on the low side. We are now seeing the low end of our range as being $440 per ton and our average has dropped another $10 per ton to $460 per ton. There may be further price erosion from here but if there is it will be self inflicted as opposed to responding to foreign steel pricing pressures. Steel buyers are telling SMU that domestic prices are very competitive against foreign and in many cases lower than foreign.
