Final Thoughts

I have had a number of conversations with steel mills and steel buyers regarding when the next flat rolled steel price increase would be announced by the domestic mills? My opinion is the mills will use the new ferrous scrap settlement prices combined with stronger order books as the reasons for going out after perhaps another $30 per ton price hike. We should learn more about scrap negotiations over the weekend and into next week. Right now SMU sources are reporting some sales up $20 to as much as up $35 depending on the product and region of the country. The market right now is still very fluid and it will take a couple/few days to get a good sense as to where scrap will be trading during the month of November. Although there does seem to be a consensus that the direction is up…

One of the conversion mills told us this morning, “…today is even zanier than yesterday. Market is close to being on fire. Smoldering at the very least!” A second conversion mill told us they only had 5,000 tons of spot left for the last week of December and then they were sold out for the year. The first mill told us, “We have given the final warning to those tier 1 accounts for the first dibs on remaining Nov/Dec line-time, but spot is now up $30 and based on this week’s action I am confident that we will sell whatever holes are left to spot market. I don’t want to price our customers out of the market relative to imports that are still arriving, so we are taking measured steps…but it is time to close out 2016, take a breather, and see what happens next. Trump? Vietnam case? Cost stabilization? Demand? Accil and Big River?”