SMU Data and Models
January 21, 2016
Steel Mills Less Willing to Negotiate Flat Rolled Pricing
Written by John Packard
As lead times move out (see article above) we traditionally find the mills less willing to negotiate flat rolled steel prices. We asked those taking our mid-January flat rolled steel market survey to provide us information regarding the willingness of the U.S. steel mills to discount or negotiate steel prices.
Hot rolled, which has been the weakest of the flat rolled steel products, found 39 percent of those responding to our questionnaire as indicating the mills as willing to negotiate HRC pricing. This is down from the high 80-97 percent range we had been collecting from our surveys in September, October, November and December 2015.
