Steel Buyers Weigh in on Domestic Spot Price Increase Announcements

AK Steel and NLMK USA raised flat rolled steel prices by $40 per ton ($2.00/cwt) on all new spot sales of flat rolled steels (hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized). At the same time, SMU understands that Steel Dynamics has opened their order books for February and are quoting prices that are approximately $40 per ton higher than what they were looking to collect for January production (Galvanized being reported at $43.00/cwt for cold rolled substrate).

Nucor increased steel prices by $40 on hot rolled and $30 on cold rolled and coated. We heard from one service center general manager today that their company was a little confused as they had just gotten new spot pricing from Nucor lower than their increase announcement (at the lower end of our price range for this week).