The International Monetary Fund says the China’s currency is “no longer undervalued” after being labeled “modestly undervalued” for the past several years. According to a Tuesday statement by IMF, “While undervaluation of the renminbi was a major factor causing the large imbalances in the past, our assessment now is that the substantial real effective appreciation […]
The following calculation is used by Steel Market Update in order to identify the spread between world hot rolled export prices as determined by SteelBenchmarker and domestic (US) hot rolled prices determined by SMU. Steel Market Update compares the world hot rolled export price to which dollars are added for freight, handling, trader margin, etc. The […]
The US Department of Commerce released preliminary census import data today (Tuesday) for the month of April. Steel Market Update (SMU) has analyzed the data for April and we have also revised our Trend Analysis for foreign steel imports for the month of May based on license data received through today. April Preliminary Census data […]
Essar Steel Algoma is asking for support from the City of Sault Ste Marie in challenging a request by the Independent Contractors and Business Association (ICBA) and the province of British Columbia for ‘regional exemption’ of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on rebar imports. “Although we are not a rebar producer, it is our view that […]
Canacero, the Mexican Iron and Steel Industry Chamber, is urging Latin American countries to take action against the flood of steel imports and derivatives from China. Latin America is the second largest international market for Chinese steel products, said Alonso Ancira Elizondo, president of Canacero. In 2014 shipments of rolled steel from China exceeded nine […]
Severstal says the DOC should not terminate the suspension agreement on cut-to-length steel plate from Russia. In a communication to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, the Russian steel producer said there is no evidence that Russian steel imports of CTL are injurious to the U.S. domestic steel market. In its letter Severstal writes, “Petitioner’s request […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets Well, the last time we spoke […]
Last month Steel Market Update (SMU) forecast flat shipments for the month of April. We believed at that time that the U.S. flat rolled steel service centers would ship 108,600 tons per day or total flat rolled shipments of 2,389,200. According to the Metal Service Center Institute (MSCI), which released shipment and inventory data for […]
Steel Market Update is a member of an association connected to the construction industry called HARDI. HARDI stands for Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International. HARDI and the Institute for Trend Research (ITR), an economic forecasting company, work together to gather economic data to provide a quarterly forecast to the HARDI members located in the […]
The value of the U.S. dollar has been one of the main themes affecting commodities around the world, including steel prices. The Russian ruble collapses making their steel the cheapest in the world. They, in turn, put pressure on the Chinese (who already are having issues due to their massive over-capacity of steelmaking) who are […]
Another 285 workers were laid off at US Steel’s Gary Works. US Steel spokesperson Courtney Boone attributes “challenging market conditions that are impacting the company” for the latest layoffs. US Steel laid off 270 workers three weeks ago but recalled 52 of them last week. On Friday, 57 salaried managers were dismissed, bringing the total […]
The following article on the hot rolled coil (HRC), busheling scrap (BUS), iron ore and financial futures markets was written by Andre Marshall, CEO of Crunch Risk LLC and our Managing Price Risk I & II instructor. Here is how Andre saw trading over the past week: Financial Markets: We are last 2118 on the […]
The spread between world hot rolled export pricing and the price average of hot rolled coil here in the United States rose this week as the impact of the domestic price increases in the U.S. takes hold. This theoretical price spread analysis is based on our review of world export prices and the hot rolled […]
The piece below was published to our Premium level members earlier this week, but we would like to share it with our Executive level members as an example of what our Premium members have access to. This report goes into much more depth than our Apparent Steel Supply article published last Thursday. If you are […]
The European Commission has begun an anti-dumping investigation on imports of cold rolled coils from China and Russia. Eurofer, the EU steel association, lodged a complaint on April 1, 2015 on behalf of EU steel producers of CRC. According to the EU Official Journal, Eurofer presented evidence “alleging that imports of certain cold-rolled flat steel […]
MID-SHIP continues to report concerns over weak demand in the dry cargo market coupled with over-supply of ships. The drop in shipping to and from China has pushed freight rates to their lowest levels since the mid 1980s according to the May 12 MID-SHIP Report. The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) was at a low of […]
Net imports equals imports minus exports. We regard this as an important look at the overall trade picture and its effect on demand at the mill level. Figure 1 shows that net sheet product imports on a three month moving average (3MMA) basis in March continue to be almost double that which existed before the […]
This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market to enable a side by side comparison and the degree to which imports have absorbed demand. Sources are the American Iron and Steel Institute and the Department of Commerce with analysis by SMU. Table 1 shows both supply and mill shipments of sheet […]
As we review steel import license data for the first time during the month of May we want to remind our readers not to read too much into the numbers. At this point in the month, we are trying to compare the second week of the month of May against the four previous months to […]
The monthly value of the Federal Reserve Broad Index of the US $ against our major trading partners is reported about one month in arrears. In one month through about April 12th this index weakened by 1.9 percent which was a sharp reversal from the previous seven month trend. The monthly BI is a “Real” […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are split over whether or not the price increase announcements of two weeks ago will actually be collected. This past week we invited approximately 600 companies to participate in our flat rolled steel market survey. Of the more than 100 companies who responded fifty-three percent told SMU that […]
Will Domestic Price Increases Create Opportunities for Foreign Steel? Over the past few months domestic steel prices have become competitive against foreign steel imports. With the price announcements SMU wondered if the increases would widen the spread, thus creating an opportunity for more foreign steel to come to the U.S. During last week’s flat rolled […]
ArcelorMittal’s NAFTA segment, and in particular the US, saw a collapse in steel prices in first quarter. High levels of imports, a strengthening dollar, and a weak energy segment created significant headwinds for the company that are expected to continue in 2015. CFO Aditya Mittal hinted in the earnings conference call that cuts may be […]
Last week was a very busy week, not only for the steel mills and their customers as they try to determine exactly where steel prices are going to go from here, but also for Steel Market Update. We produced our early May flat rolled steel market analysis (survey) and posted the results online for our […]
Perhaps the scrap market can best be described by those actively sourcing/selling ferrous scrap. Here is how one of the larger groups saw the market this week, “The scrap trade was quite tumultuous this week. Scrap demand, both export and domestic was robust, forcing the scrap processors to take a hard look at what sales […]
Licensed data for April was updated on May 5th through the Steel Import Monitoring System of the US Commerce Department. The SMU publishes several import reports ranging from this very early look using licensed data to the very detailed analysis of final volumes by district of entry and source nation which is available to our […]
ArcelorMittal reported a net loss of $728 million in first quarter 2015 compared to a loss of $955 million in fourth quarter 2014. EBITDA was $1.4 billion. Steel shipments were up 3 percent year over year to 21.6 million tonnes. Iron ore shipments rose 5 percent to 9.4 million tonnes. Total sales for the company […]
The 2015 Association for Iron and Steel Technology Steelmaker of the Year Award was presented to Mario Longhi, president and chief executive officer of U.S. Steel Corp. at the AISTech 2015 conference in Cleveland, Ohio on May 5, 2015. The award recognizes the contributions of a prominent individual to the steel industry. Longhi was honored […]
According to the latest data released from the US Department of Commerce and the American Iron and Steel Institute, apparent steel supply for the month of March 2015 is 9,575,903 net tons. Apparent steel supply is calculated by adding domestic steel shipments and finished US steel imports and subtracting total US steel exports. March supply […]
I had an interesting email from one of our members who expressed an issue with the reduction of articles written by me. Here is a portion of the email, “When we first subscribed to your publication several years ago, we found that John P was doing most of the writing and he would stick his […]