Steel Buyers Seeing Steel Mills as More Willing to Negotiate Spot Steel Prices

Average flat rolled lead times (the amount of time it takes a steel mill to produce a new order placed today) have begun to shrink which is causing steel mills to be more receptive to negotiating flat rolled spot steel prices based on those responding to this week’s flat rolled steel market trends analysis survey.

In the middle of January only 17 percent of the respondents to the mid-January market trends survey reported the domestic steel mills as willing to negotiate spot hot rolled pricing. Much has changed over the past two weeks as this week’s survey has 54 percent of the respondents reporting the mills as willing to negotiate HRC steel prices. The last time we saw more than 50 percent of the respondents reporting the mills as willing to negotiate was in the middle of October 2016.