Service Center Intake, Shipments and Inventory through July 2016

We normally reserve our expanded service center data analysis for our Premium members but felt this would be a good piece to share with all of our members.

Based on Steel Market Update (SMU) analysis of the recently released MSCI service center inventory and shipment data, total service center carbon steel shipments declined by 443,300 in July to 2,776,200 tons which was a contraction of 13.8 percent. At first glance a very poor result but on further examination not as bad as it seems. There were two mitigating factors. First the number of shipping days declined by two and secondly July is historically the second lowest shipping month of the year, worsted only by December.