Over the past few days, Steel Market Update has received a number of inquiries from steel buyers who were upset that they are being put into a position where they have to consider buying foreign steel rather than domestic due to the pricing disparity between the two products. A Midwest service center buyer reported that […]
Olympic Steel, a metals service center headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, reported net sales of 376.6 million for third quarter, an increase of 23.9 percent year over year and a new third quarter sales record. Net sales on flat products totaled $312 million while sales for tubular and pipe products totaled $63.8 million. Flat rolled shipments […]
Nucor followed up their verbal price increase of $20 per ton last week with specific base prices yesterday (Wednesday, November 5, 2014). In a letter from the Nucor Sheet Mill Group, the mill advised their customers that their minimum base price levels on spot flat rolled are now: $33.00/cwt ($660 per ton) and $39.00/cwt ($780 […]
The U.S. Department of Commerce updated license data for the month of October this afternoon. According to the data collected through November 4th imports for October will be approximately 4.3 million net tons. Based on the latest license data, October should come in around 4,381,875 net tons. This number could be +/- a couple of […]
China has a number of taxes on steel, both domestically and for exports. This is one of the misunderstandings many countries have (including the United States). We have been speaking about the subject with one of our key Asian trading contacts over the past few days as we asked about possible suspension of Boron added […]
Chinese steel trade data was recently released for the month of September 2014, providing updated data on iron ore imports, steel scrap imports, and flat rolled imports and exports. Chinese imports of iron ore in September were 84,695,000 metric tons, an increase of 13.1 percent from the previous month and an increase of 13.6 percent […]
Global manufacturing continued to expand for the 23rd successive month according to JP Morgan and Markit. The JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI registered 52.2 in October, unchanged from September. “The global PMI continues to signal 3-4% annualized gains in manufacturing output as we head towards year-end,” said David Hensley, Director of Global Economics Coordination at […]
An explanation of the Key Indicators concept is given at the end of this piece for those readers who are unfamiliar with it. The total number of indicators considered has been increased by one this month to thirty six. We have added the price of coking coal FOB the Australian East Coast to the raw […]
Today’s hot rolled coil and ferrous scrap futures article is written by Bradley Clark, Director of Steel Trading at Kataman Metals. The market seems to have bottomed out with the CRU coming in at $640 yesterday. Positive sentiment has outweighed any negatives in the market with AK Steel recently announcing a price hike of $20/ton […]
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the third estimate of Q3 2014 Annual Revision of the National Income and Product Accounts on Thursday. The annualized growth rate in the third quarter was 3.50 percent which was down from 4.51 percent in Q2 but still exceeded most analysts’ expectations. GDP is measured and reported in […]
US Steel announced in their earnings conference call that Carnegie Way benefits now total $495 million for 2014 due primarily to improvements in manufacturing processes, supply chain and logistics, and SG&A reductions. “While our operating difficulties in North America in the first half of the year made it difficult to see the results of our […]
Commercial Metals Company (CMC) reported net earnings of $34.9 million for its fourth quarter ending August 31, 2014. Net sales increased 12 percent year over year to $1.9 billion. For the full fiscal year 2014, net earnings were 115.6 million on net sales of 7 billion. In comparison, FY 2013 net earnings were 77.3 million […]
The following is the Chicago Federal Reserve statement followed by our own graphical analysis. The CFNAI is an excellent reality check for much of the economic analysis that we routinely provide in The Steel Market Update. An explanation of the Index is provided at the end of this piece. Index Shows Economic Growth Picked up […]
This article was written just prior to the AK Steel announcement of a $20 per ton price increase which we received after 5 PM this afternoon. Steel Market Update reported in a recent issue (SMU Oct. 23rd) recently that this is the time of the year that the domestic steel mills traditionally move to stem […]
As expected, the Russian hot rolled tonnage won’t be missed for very long as Brazil, Turkey and other countries look to fill the void. The upside for buyers is the replacement mills produce a superior product to what was coming in from Russia. At the moment we are being advised by current Russian buyers that […]
The American Institute for International Steel (AISI) says the increase in imports this year is a sign of a healthy economy. Increased imports indicate increased demand and thriving businesses. The press release from AIIS follows: Falls Church, Va., October 27, 2014 – Steel imports continued their upward trend in September, increasing 5.2 percent over their […]
This is good. There is a debate going on within the industry regarding the need for a price increase and whether the customers (tail) are wagging the dog (mill). One buyers ask SMU, “Knowing their history of lacking price discipline…taking advantage of their fear and uncertainty of not filling mill and talking the market down […]
Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co reported record sales for third quarter of $2.71 billion on shipments of 1.5 million tons. Not only did the company have good results to report, the Reliance executives had good commentary to offer in their third quarter conference call. Reliance noted that their purchase of imported steel has increased from […]
On Thursday of this past week Nucor announced their earnings and conducted their quarterly earnings conference call with analysts. SMU has highlighted a number of subjects touched on during the conference call. The following information (minus the headers) was taken directly from The Street transcript of the call: Potential for Light Flat Rolled Trade Cases […]
Total September steel imports were just shy 3.9 million net tons according to the Preliminary Census numbers just released by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Total steel imports were up 5.2 percent over August data, and up 38.0 percent year over year. Semi-finished imports (mostly slabs) were up 6.3 percent month over month and 47.3 […]
MID-SHIP Group reports that the two biggest factors impacting the dry cargo freight market right now are U.S. and South American agricultural products and Chinese imports and exports. Expectations for strong exports of agricultural products are high but not much has hit the export market yet. Iron ore imports into China have slowly started to […]
Steel buyers and sellers continue to be optimistic about their company’s ability to be successful in the current market conditions. However, there are some signs of strain growing, either due to seasonal pressures or margin squeezes, that may be giving pause to some within the industry. Even so, the results from the mid-October flat rolled […]
The following article comes from one of our contributing writers, Andre Marshall of Crunch Risk, LLC. Andre is a well known trader/broker in the hot rolled coil (HRC) and other commodities futures markets. He is also our instructor for the SMU Managing Price Risk I and II workshop series. Tonight Andre speaks to the financial […]
Nucor beat guidance forecasts with earnings of $245 million for the third quarter of 2014, up from $147 million in both Q2 2013 and Q3 2013. Consolidated net sales increased 8 percent to $5.70 billion. Strong third quarter earnings were attributed to improved performance in sheet steel, structural, bar, and plate steel that was partially […]
Steel Dynamics third quarter net sales rose to $2.3 billion from $72 million in Q2 and $57 million in third quarter 2013. SDI shipped a record volume of steel in third quarter—1.9 million tons up from 1.58 million tons in Q3 2013 and 1.67 million tons in second quarter 2014. Production increased to 1.88 million […]
Steel Dynamics admitted in their conference call with analysts earlier today, that the timing is not right for a trade case against cold rolled and coated steels (the question asked was about Chinese the answer did not reference any specific country). We thought our readers would be interested in the complete dialogue between two of […]
Everyone is aware of the high level of flat rolled imports in 2014 – especially cold rolled and coated products. So, where does 2014 rank on a historical basis? It is on pace to be the third highest year on record. We have 8 months of actual import data on the books. August year-to-date flat […]
The following is our October analysis of the flat rolled and OCTG imports based on license data through October 21, 2014. As we have mentioned many times, license data is not exact and many times can lead one to over or under project final steel import numbers. We have seen license data for the first […]
On Friday, October 16, 2014, the U.S. Department of Commerce terminated the Russian Hot Rolled Suspension Agreement. The agreement, which goes back to 1990 with numerous revisions over the years, covers all carbon flat rolled shipments out of Russia on the following ASTM numbers: A36 (plate), A568, A569, A572, A607 and A715. A few of […]
Figure 1 shows historical gas and oil prices since January 2000. The daily spot price of West Texas Intermediate fell below $100 in August and by October 14th was down to $81.72, the latest daily figure available from the Energy Information Administration, (EIA.) Brent closed at $86.36 on the same day. The EIA has calculated […]