The shipping season on the Great Lakes officially ended with the closing of the Soo Locks on Friday, Jan. 15. The locks in Sault St. Marie are the last to close for the winter season. The Welland Canal, through Ontario, closed on Dec 30 followed by the St. Lawrence Seaway locks on Dec. 31. The […]
There are zombie factories in China. No, they are not making zombies but the factories themselves are the equivalent of the walking dead–steel mills hanging on by a thread, not making money, reducing workforces, but clinging to life when they are all but dead. The China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) is painting a grim […]
This report compares domestic mill shipments and total supply to the market. It quantifies market direction by product and enables a side by side comparison showing 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 […]
New York manufacturers experienced their worse business conditions since the 2007-2009 recession, according to the January Empire State Manufacturing Survey. All indexes for current conditions were in negative numbers except those for pricing. The survey for general business conditions index fell 13 points to -19.4. Indexes for new orders and shipments plummeted by double digits […]
Over the last two flat rolled steel market analysis performed by Steel Market Update (the last concluding this past Thursday, January 7th) we have seen a dramatic break in the overall (all participants included) demand trend. As you can see by the graphic provided, over the past two quarters we saw the rise and peak […]
Mill Steel, a distributor of flat rolled carbon steel, has announced the acquisition of certain assets of S&S Steel Services for an undisclosed amount. S&S Steel Services, located in Anderson, Ind., is a supplier of carbon flat-rolled steel services serving manufacturing customers in the Midwest, Mid-South and Mid-Atlantic United States. S&S will continue steel slitting […]
After reviewing the results of last week’s flat rolled market analysis (our survey) I continue to be optimistic that business conditions will continue to improve as 2016 progresses. We broke the negative trend in our Sentiment Index, we are seeing more optimistic results from manufacturing as they look out three to six months into the […]
The last couple of days have been hectic as we worked through the articles seen in tonight’s newsletter as well as numerous articles that we are working on various topics. The two headline articles are, of course, the next round of flat rolled price increases. The Nucor $20 hot rolled and $30 cold rolled and […]
Last week Steel Market Update conducted our early January 2016 flat rolled steel market analysis. Our Premium level customers got access to the results of our queries in the form of a Power Point presentation which puts the results into a historical context. One of the unique line of questions asked were related to the […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analysis of non-farm employment reported on Friday that 292,000 jobs were added in December, which was better than economist’s consensus expectations. October was revised up by 9,000 and November up by 41,000. The three month moving (3MMA) of gains through December was 284,000. The unemployment rate, U3, calculated from […]
Buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel are slowly beginning to feel better about their company’s prospects both now and into the future, according to the results of the Steel Market Update (SMU) flat rolled steel market analysis just completed earlier today. SMU is reporting current market sentiment as being up +1 point to +44. […]
The Associated General Contractors of America released the results from their 2016 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook Report. Survey responses from more than 1,500 construction firms indicate that the construction industry is optimistic about business opportunities for 2016. A mix of private and public sector market segments are expected to drive demand for construction in […]
The Institute of Supply Management released their December report on January 4th 2016 with a value of 48.6 which is the lowest since June 2009. An explanation of the ISM index is given at the end of this piece. After seven straight months of decline the three month moving average (3MMA) of the index had […]
Manufacturing ended the year with general global slowing as production and new orders declined. The JP Morgan Global Manufacturing PMI registered 50.9 in December, down from 51.2 in November. The global PMI average for 2015 failed to surpass the average reading for the prior two years. PMI indices for China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia and […]
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 in this analysis is currently 36. We have made a change to our analysis this month by removing the capacity utilization of both the flat rolled […]
Each month the Commerce Department issues its Construction Put in Place (CPIP) data, usually on the first working day covering activity two months earlier. November data was released on Monday January 4th and data for private construction was revised back to January 2005, almost eleven years. Construction Put in Place is based on spending work […]
The winner of the 2015 Steel Man of the Year is Lisa Goldenberg, the first woman to receive the award from the Association of Steel Distributors. The press release from ASD follows: The Association of Steel Distributors (ASD) is proud to announce Lisa Goldenberg has received the 2015 Steel Man of the Year Award. Since […]
A quick note about December import license data reported as of this evening: Vietnam for December has requested 63,932 net tons of import licenses. Of those 42,114 net tons are cold rolled and 11,787 net tons are galvanized.The average for cold rolled and galvanized exports from Vietnam over the past twelve months was less than […]
The China Iron and Steel Association reported that Chinese steel mills suffered losses of approximately $8.18 billion dollars in the first eleven months of 2015. Revenue fell 19.3 percent year over year for the 101 large and mid-sized steel mills that CISA tracks. With falling steel demand at home, China steel exports surged in the […]
The Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey, conducted by the Dallas Fed, showed mixed results in December. The general business activity index plunged to -20.1 from -4.9 in November indicating a continued weakness in manufacturing. Analysts expected a decrease but only to around -6.0. In contrast, the index for production rose 8.2 points to 13.4 during the […]
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 and is also a reasonably good predictor of the direction of steel demand with a six to nine month […]
Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out its series of producer price indexes, for thousands of goods and materials. For an explanation of this program see the end of this piece. The latest release last week reported results through November. We run this analysis every three or four months to give readers […]
Late this afternoon the US Department of Commerce released their Preliminary Determination regarding antidumping of corrosion resistant steels from China, India, Taiwan, Korea and Italy. China was smacked the hardest and received margins of 255.80 percent while India (6.64-6.92%), Korea (2.99-3.51%) and Italy (0.0-3.11%) were slapped on the wrists. Taiwan received no antidumping margin what-so-ever. […]
Scrap dealers are optimistic that ferrous scrap prices have bottomed in all regions of the country and will rise as we move into negotiations for the month of January. A rising scrap market is a harbinger of good things for the steel mills as they attempt to collect the increases already announced and perhaps add […]
On Friday, SMU was speaking with the CEO of a Midwest-based service center who was advising us that, in his opinion, based on the conversations he was having with his mill suppliers, we should expect more flat rolled steel price increases to come. The mills were already asking his company for more and the mills’ […]
The UAW has ratified a new contract with Nexteer Automotive after rejecting a first tentative agreement just two weeks ago. The ratification averted another possible strike by the membership. UAW Local 699, representing 3,200 workers at Nexteer, reported that 64.2 percent of voting members supported the new contract. Changes from the original agreement include increasing […]
Both of these data points are reported in the Federal Reserve G17 data base. The index had an all-time high of 107.9108 in November last year but on a month over month (m/m) basis has declined for nine of the first eleven months of 2015. This contrasts sharply with last year when in only one […]
The domestic steel mills began raising flat rolled steel prices late last week and into this week. We saw a mild rise in our hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume indices as the domestic mills began to collect at least a portion of the announced increases. As we canvass the buyers and sellers of […]
Worthington Industries posted net sales of $699.8 million and net earnings of $23.2 million for second quarter 2016 ending November 30, 2015. CEO John McConnell called it a “solid performance for the quarter in the face of some market weakness.” Sales were down 19.7 percent compared to the prior year’s second quarter as result of […]
Manufacturing activity in the New York area declined for the fifth consecutive month in December. The rate of decline slowed somewhat as indicated by the headline general business index of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey, climbing six points to register -4.6. The new orders continued to fall to an index reading of -5.1. Shipments, however, […]