SMU Distributor Apparent Excess/Deficit Inventories Results & Forecast

For the second month in a row, Steel Market Update (SMU) did reasonably well with our forecast for August shipments, inventories and where we thought the Apparent Deficit/Excess for service center carbon flat rolled inventories would be at the end of August.

SMU forecast shipments of hot rolled, cold rolled and coated steels would total 2,353,000 net tons for the month of August. Based on the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI) reporting from earlier this week, actual shipments out of the distributors totaled 2,321,000 net tons. Our forecast for a higher distributor daily shipment was correct. However, the size of the increase was slightly less than what we expected.