Final Thoughts
May 8, 2019
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
I am in Chicago having spoken to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch gathering last night, and I will be attending the Metals Industry Boy Scout Dinner this evening.
The conversations I am having here in Chicago are similar to what we have been reporting for some time now. Steel buyers are concerned and frustrated with the decline of spot prices. Service centers are reporting that their end-user customers are either “sitting on their hands” or buying to the minimums of their contracts. In some cases, the minimums being negotiated are less than the minimums promised to the service center mill suppliers. This ends up increasing inventories and may be one reason why our analysis has been showing inventories building during first-quarter 2019.
