Steel Mills Not Yet Negotiating from a Position of Strength

U.S. and Canadian steel buyers reported mills as less willing to negotiate flat rolled steel prices (hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume prices) at the beginning of the month of May. Prior to that, the domestic steel mills had been extremely active and willing to negotiate pricing on all products. This, according to our flat rolled steel market survey conducted during the first week of May.

Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted our mid-May survey beginning on Monday of this week concluding our analysis earlier today. We found improvements (respondents reporting mills as less willing to negotiate pricing) on hot rolled and galvanized. The cold rolled and Galvalume results were slightly less optimistic as more respondents reported the mills as willing to negotiate than what we saw at the beginning of the month.