SMU Data and Models
August 20, 2015
SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index: Trending Sideways & Below Last Year
Written by John Packard
The people who buy and sell flat rolled steel for a living continue to be optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful both now and three to six months into the future. However, the year over year weakening (or less optimistic) trend that we have seen for most, if not all of this calendar year, is continuing as all of our indices generated numbers below what we saw at this same point in time last year.
We heard from some of the respondents that they were concerned about the upcoming expiration of the labor contracts with the USW and US Steel as well as ArcelorMittal. The combination of trade suits and the labor situation was introduced a level of “uncertainty” into the market which we believe is being picked up in our Sentiment indices.
