Final Thoughts

We are seeing the early signs of a market where flat rolled steel prices are either peaking or about to top out. Last week, I spoke about service center spot prices into their end customers. I mentioned that both the manufacturing companies, and the service centers themselves, were beginning to report spot prices as being stable or slightly lower than what was being offered two weeks before. Many steel distributors continue to raise prices based on our survey results from last week, but there are signs some companies are already making adjustments. In my Final Thoughts published last Thursday, I spoke about growing inventories that were most likely the culprit if a service center was inclined to keep prices the same (or lower prices).

On Friday, SMU provided our service center data providers a “flash” report with the preliminary results from the first five days of data collection regarding distributor inventories and shipments. The results were quite stunning in that we are reporting the third month of inventories increasing as steel mills catch up on late shipments and foreign steel orders arrive. Our full report will be published at the end of this week for data providers, and over the weekend for our Premium members. If you would like to upgrade your account from Executive to Premium, please reach out to Paige@SteelMarketUpdate.com