Final Thoughts

I have been working on two major projects today: flat rolled and plate pricing for our steel index and flat rolled steel service center inventories as of the end of September. I finished the first project on pricing, which showed mixed results with some price erosion on a couple of items and stable prices on others. In the second project on inventories, I’ve heard from about 50 percent of the companies registered to supply information. I am hopeful we will collect the vast majority of the data by the time we produce our Thursday issue of Steel Market Update.

I continue to look for prime flat rolled and steel plate service centers who are willing to work with SMU on a strictly confidential basis as we endeavor to better understand service center inventories and business trends. You can ask questions and find out more about our goals for this new index we are creating by contacting me directly: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com. I am also looking for ideas directly from distributors on the kinds of information that has been missing and would be helpful as they make buying and selling decisions.