USA HRC Spot Prices Breach The $1,100/ton Mark
Spot prices for US-made hot-rolled coil breached the $1,100 per ton level early this week based on WSD’s canvassing of buyers and sellers in the market, even as most planned mill outages have ended. Lead times are at eight to nine weeks, according to market participants as spot availability is still limited, they noted.
Market sources pegged spot prices for average-size tonnage transactions at $1,095-$1,105 on Tuesday, depending on the mill. In fact, Nucor raised its Consumer Spot Price (CSP) for HRC from mills other than CSI to $1,105 per ton on Monday—a $10 hike from last week. The CSI price was also increased by $10 to $1,155 per ton for the western US.
“The spot market tightness persists,” a Midwest service center buyer said, “so we’re just filling in as best we can.”
A steel distributor in the southern US told WSD that he’s seeing stronger activity from some key manufacturing segments. “Transportation equipment, energy and certain machinery business has been really good lately,” he said.
Market confidence continues to be extremely positive through the summer, based on positions being taken on the CME HRC futures contracts.
Settlements Monday for the CME’s June through November monthly contracts were all well above $1,100 per ton—with August and September even closer to $1,200/ton ($1,188 and $1,182, respectively.) August and September also saw the most volume (278 and 202 lots, respectively.)
Meanwhile, June’s ferrous scrap buying period started Monday June 1. Most scrap market players told WSD they anticipate sideways pricing for prime grades.
“Everybody’s cooking in this market, right now,” a steel trader said.