Research

Forecasts and market analysis based on price assessments from Fastmarkets MB and Fastmarkets AMM

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December 2018 | Galvanized Steel and Tinplate Market Tracker


US HDG prices continue to inch down but may rebound early 2019: American Market Highlights


Uncertainties about what the future holds on the trade front will play into future US HDG base prices, as will plans for additional production capacity to come online in 2019 and 2020.

US HDG prices continue to fall and are likely to slip further
Mill attempts to firm up prices, or to at least draw a line in the sand, have clearly failed with US HDG prices falling further over the past month to $860-900/short ton from $880-920/ton with further slippage seeming likely, at least through early in the first quarter. This comes on the back of the widely held perception that prices moved up too high after the Section 232 tariffs and quotas were put into place because of fears that they would result in tight supply. That, however, didn’t happen. In fact, mill HDG sheet lead times are quite short with distributors being very cautious about how much inventories they are holding in this falling price environment – even more than they usually are at the end of the year.

Most coating adders are likely to...

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