Final Thoughts

I’m going to give you more than advertisements in tonight’s Final Thoughts. I have been struggling with our SMU Price Momentum Indicator. It appears that each product has a life of its own, and I need to do a deeper analysis of each to determine where my Momentum Indicator needs to be. Right now, I have hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume as pointing toward “Higher” prices over the next 30 days. Plate steels are at “Neutral.” Early this week my focus will be on steel prices and direction as I speak to both buyers and sellers to determine where they are seeing demand, negotiations (flexibility), spot pricing out of service centers and mill order books.

I am receiving mixed messages regarding the strength (or weakness) of the mill order books and demand. On one hand, I have had steel buyers reporting very strong order books at Steel Dynamics, Nucor and some other mills. Many products are being quoted with “inquire” as the lead time. Usually when you see inquire it is due to a stronger than normal book, or where certain products are much more extended than others and more details are necessary from the mill prior to quoting/booking an order.