Final Thoughts

Yesterday (Wednesday, Dec. 2) we hosted one of our SMU Community Chat Webinars. The guest speaker was Josh Spoores, Principal Analyst and editor of the Sheet Monitor for CRU. I thought it was one of the best presentations and discussions we have ever had at one of our webinars. You can see a recording and get copies of the presentations by clicking here (you can find other recordings and presentations from past webinars by using that same link).

One of the questions that keeps coming up, especially when market prices are moving quickly as they are today, is why there is a variance between the CRU hot rolled index and other indices? The short answer to that question is methodology – the CRU index is transaction-based whereas ours (and many others) relies on the bid and ask (what mills are asking for spot pricing, and what steel buyers are willing to pay) as opposed to specific transactions.