Service Center Inventories: Drop in January, Expect Bigger Drop in February

According to the Steel Market Update Service Center Flat Rolled Inventories Index, distributor inventories fell over the course of the month of January. Our index has distributors holding 2.8 months of supply as of the end of the month. This is 0.2 of a month’s supply lower than the 3 months of inventory held at distributors as of the end of December 2017.

Here are some of the details of our analysis. With 89 percent of the registered service centers responding with their end of January numbers, 46 percent of the respondents reported lower inventories, 31 percent reported higher inventories and 23 percent reported inventories that were essentially unchanged from their end of December levels.