Research

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

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December 2016 | Galvanized Steel and Tinplate Market Tracker


US HDG spot prices are yet to peak: American Market Highlights


MBR believes that the mills could announce another $30-$40/ton price increase early in the first quarter, especially if scrap prices continues to make big gains, as they have done so over the past few months.

Normally when spot US HDG prices jump by as much as $140/short ton in less than two months it would appear that this is just the first leg of the roller coaster ride that we have seen in past pricing cycles. But MBR doesn’t believe that that is the case this time around. With scrap and other input costs moving dramatically upwards, distributor inventories remaining quite low with only about 1.2-1.5 months of stocks on hand, current import availability limited and expectations of continued moderate gains in demand, MBR believes that yet another price increase could be accepted by the marketplace and the inevitable second quarter 2017 price correction will likely be less drastic than those corrections we have seen in past years. Indeed, any price correction may have to wait until H2 2017.

Already spot prices at east coast and Midwest mills have jumped...

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