Service Center Spot Pricing Collapsing

There is no more debate, service centers are moving off inventories at deeper discounts to their end customers than they did just a few weeks ago.

The lower spot prices to service center customers were captured during the Steel Market Update flat rolled and plate steel market trends analysis conducted this past week. As you can see in the graphic below, 61 percent of the manufacturing companies reported their steel distributors as decreasing spot prices compared to two weeks earlier. This is more than double the 29 percent who reported lower spot prices during our mid-April market trends analysis.