Final Thoughts

We will begin our early February flat rolled steel market analysis on Monday. If you receive an invitation to participate please take a few moments to click on the link and respond to our questionnaire. We will produce a few articles on the results of our queries on Thursday for our Executive level members. Our Premium members will have access to our Power Point presentation on Friday afternoon once we have posted it on our website.

Scrap prices are starting to trade and the early trades have been at sideways numbers (same as January). However, the long term prognosis for scrap prices is not so rosy. Here is what one of our sources told us late on Friday, “Feb trading is just beginning but initial sales are sideways.  On a broad scale we are seeing lower demand as mills have restocked and order books remain weak, this is balanced by short supply due to weather and transportation issues.  Although recent export sales to Turkey have dropped over $10mt US exporters have not dropped buy prices because they are still covering old sales at the higher levels. It is my opinion March will bring lower prices as weather improves and export will continue to drop.”