Final Thoughts

As I wander around the industry talking to buyers and sellers of steel I am always asking and listening for the signs of change. These are “warnings” to my ears and I heard one earlier today that needs to be pursued further and I think we will have the opportunity to do so at our conference next week. A large service center who is a supplier to the automotive industry was telling me this afternoon that their company has seen an abrupt slowdown in releases from their automotive customers. I was told, “After July shutdowns… the first couple of weeks of August the releases just aren’t there.” I asked if the automotive rolling schedule (normally 12 weeks of orders) had changed and we were told “no, the rolling schedule is still the same.” Inventories of unsold automobiles (and trucks) are high and their company was definitely concerned about the flow of incoming steel not matching the releases…

A service center executive told me this morning, “Hot rolled is hitting the skids, mostly for volume, not necessarily for the little guy.” He went on to say, “I don’t see much hope for this market. It will continue to go down.”