Final Thoughts

This week I will be working with steel buyers (and steel mills) to see how the price increase on flat rolled is being received. As is normal when lead times are short and price announcements are made, many mills held pricing through the end of last week for those who had outstanding quotes or needed to place orders to beat the increase. With the Fourth of July Holiday week starting on Monday, we will see how strong the bookings were last week and how firm the sales reps have been told to be when negotiating orders this week.

I anticipate there could be further price erosion based on the orders taken late last week. We are aware of hot rolled prices as low as $460 per ton ($23.00/cwt) being taken on large orders. There could be a very wide spread in the numbers once they come out on Tuesday evening. I will begin collecting pricing data on Monday afternoon.