Final Thoughts

Nope, I have not yet changed my position on the flat rolled market and where I am seeing momentum. Demand is good, sentiment is just “ok” for lack of a better term. I am seeing a little weakness in the plate market, but come on, the spread between plate and hot rolled is way too far apart. Something had to give.

I expect inventories to come down when we do our analysis with our service center data providers early next month. Our plan is to have our “flash” report back to data providers by no later than Friday, Feb. 8. We will have the full report to the data providers the following week. We are not giving the data to the market right now due to the transition we have done with our data providers. We are collecting much more data than before, and our reports will be much more valuable in the months ahead because of it. If your service center is interested in becoming a confidential inventory data provider, please contact me at John@SteelMarketUpdate.com