Steel Products Prices North America
September 29, 2015
SMU Price Ranges & Indices: Make Me an Offer
Written by John Packard
Flat rolled steel prices remained “flexible” over the past week. During our conversations with steel buyers (and steel mills) we learned that the best prices were being offered on tonnage tied to an actual order. One of the big issues we face as we try to develop fair and reasonable price ranges is how do we handle mills as they waive extras, freight equalize or just eat all of the freight to a specific location? It is difficult to balance where base prices are with the $10, $20 and sometimes larger giveaways being provided by the steel mills. We intentionally say “the steel mills” as we do not know of a mill that is not negotiable when it comes to extras and possibly freight. Whatever it takes to get the deal done. We will discuss this more in the coming days.
Many of the buyers with whom we spoke provided us the old, “If I had tons to buy this is where I could get them.” We have no choice but to discount those numbers as sometimes wishful thinking. Even so, we see the market as soft, the number of spot orders being placed are hand to mouth only – no one is building inventory.
