Service Center Sheet Apparent Excess Jumps to +839,000 Tons

We finally got our Flat Rolled Steel Service Center Apparent Excess/Deficit Inventory forecast model back on track. As we mentioned last month, SMU had been operating under a much more optimistic frame of mind and this past month we pulled back on our expectations and by doing so we came very close to nailing both flat rolled steel shipments and inventory levels out of the U.S. flat rolled steel service centers.

For the month of August we forecast that daily shipments would be 5 percent lower than last year and that total shipments would equal 2,236,000 tons. Actual shipments were slightly lower with total tonnage being 2,181,000 tons. We missed our shipment forecast by 55,000 tons.