Final Thoughts

You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees

Mill lead times have surged over the past couple of weeks, which I believe is a result of Snowmageddon in Texas and other areas of the Southeast. When you look at our lead time graphics, you need to remember we are gathering data from our flat rolled and plate steel market trends survey. The lead time data is generated from buyers who are associated with steel service centers and manufacturing companies. We do not collect data from individual mills. When reviewing our data, understand that specific mills have different ways of filling their orders books. A good example is Steel Dynamics’ Butler plant, which opened and closed their April order book this week, while other mills have a more traditional way of booking orders and they could be taking hot rolled for May and June depending on how full their order book is with existing commitments (contracts) and how far behind they are with late orders.