Reuters reported today on a possible falling out between a top steel union in Germany and up to 60 different steel producers in the country. Depending on whether they can reach[This content is for MEMBERS ONLY. Please click Subscribe in the upper right corner to continue.]
This makes perfect sense. There are three basic, main components to steel production (over-generalization here). Iron ore, coking coal, and scrap metal go into most steel production units. Tokyo steel announced that it would reduce its price for scrap steel to the broader market. Well, unfortunately, the country has a lot of it to market [...]
US Steel sent a clear message to the street today, announcing that it expects steel demand (flat roll steel), to be weaker in the fourth quarter as US economic [This content is for MEMBERS ONLY. Please click Subscribe in the upper right corner to continue.]
The largest producer of rare earth materials in the world will shut down production for an entire month to allow the price of those materials to appreciate. Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech said that it must curtail production to allow the price to move upward after the Chinese Government eased imposed tariffs that it set on [...]
Many analysts see the 10% drop in copper prices over the past 48 hours as a bad sign for the overall global economy. Copper has traditionally been one of the best indicators of economic volatility because it goes[This content is for MEMBERS ONLY. Please click Subscribe in the upper right corner to continue.]
There were several reports out today that gave a hint at steel trends for the last quarter of 2011. Steel Dynamics reported earnings that missed Wall Street expectations just slightly, but it was likely their comments about future growth that impacted the street more. The CEO of the company, Keith Busse, said that sales and [...]
Not hardly. But, Rio Tinto did report sales that were up over last year by nearly 2.2million tons of iron ore and 14% increase in sales of coking coal. As an additional piece of insight from the story prior in today’s brief, Rio Tinto is acknowledging that Chinese activity is extremely brisk at the moment [...]
Now we may know what is driving the Baltic Dry Index upward. For the second economic cycle in a row, Chinese corporations are stockpiling raw materials during a period of price depreciation. We saw this trend in 2009 when the government used its stimulus funding to help companies in China load up[This content is for [...]
Officials in India are trying to slow the rising price of local iron ore used in steel production and are proposing a 30% increase in export tariffs to try and accomplish this. Local users of steel are finding it difficult to cope with rising prices for steel in India because of the skyrocketing consumption of [...]
The market has punished the steel market over the past 48 hours. Take AK Steel and US Steel as just two examples; Thursday, both lost 10% and 9% respectively. That sell-off was because of speculation that the globe would be going through a tough period of manufacturing. But, looking at real demand and the impact [...]
