Final Thoughts
November 11, 2020
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
The SMU Steel Price Momentum Indicators on all flat rolled and plate steel products are currently pointing toward higher prices over the next 30 days. We expect hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized, Galvalume and steel plate pricing to increase during the coming weeks. The two major reasons for our position are the limitations of supply due to restricted production at the integrated steel mills, a lack of slabs due to restrictions on Brazil imports by the Trump administration, a strike at NLMK USA’s Farrell, Pa., plant, a hack of the computer systems at Stelco in Canada along with an inability of the domestic service centers to build inventories.
Earlier this month, Steel Market Update provided our service center data providers our “Flash” report on service center inventories and shipments. In it we calculated flat rolled inventories as heading toward 1.83 months of supply (final report will be out late this week). This is quite concerning when lead times are over seven weeks for many (if not all) flat rolled products.
