SMU Data and Models
August 6, 2017
SMU Adjusts Price Momentum Indicator to Neutral
Written by John Packard
The lack of a committed market direction by service centers, coupled with strong imports and inventories that SMU believes are balanced to slightly bloated at the distributors, has prompted us to move our SMU Price Momentum Indicator to Neutral from Higher.
In an interesting development, twice as many manufacturing companies reported that flat rolled steel service centers were raising flat rolled steel spot prices (30 percent) as were lowering prices (15 percent). The remaining 55 percent saw spot prices as stable compared to the last time we queried two weeks ago.
