June 2012 | Steel Tracker
Chinese overproduction forcing prices lower: Latest Analysis
Another inconclusive crisis summit fails to show a path out of the Eurozone’s troubles, but at least the question mark over the euro is keeping imports down.
As the recovery in the US economy looks hesitant again steel users delay orders, service centres cut stocks. Restraints on output – lower utilisation rates and lower imports of semis – have so far failed to halt the downward drift of prices. Feedback from the weak scrap market breeds confusion in US long product markets.Another inconclusive crisis summit fails to show a path out of the Eurozone’s troubles, but at least the question mark over the euro is keeping imports down. Gloom spreads in steel markets as the German economy loses confidence and appears to lose strength. Steel orders stall ahead of the holidays as car sales drift down and the construction recovery remains uncertain. High stocks and still rising production depress Chinese domestic prices and undermine traded prices in east Asia. There remain hopes that changes in government leadership will result in a bolder economic stimulus to counteract the...
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