Steelmaker Nucor’s Consumer Spot Price (CSP) -the price it charges for hot-rolled coils across all of its mills- increased today following steady pricing over the past two weeks, the steel maker said today in a letter to its customers.
This week’s CSP increased to $750/nt ($827/mt) or $37.50/cwt., up from $740/nt ($816/mt) or $37.00/cwt. during the weeks of November 4 and October 28. Since October 14, the CSP price has increased by nearly 4.2 percent, while since July 15, the CSP has risen nearly 15.4 percent. As of this week, the Nucor CSP price is on par with an October 30 price announcement released to customers by competitor Cleveland-Cliffs. On that date, Cliffs said its Hot Rolled Market Price would remain at $750/nt.
Market insiders told SteelOrbis this week that recent posted price increases for hot rolled coils are less the result of improved demand for finished steel products, and more the result of an anticipated presidential win for Donald Trump, which could potentially result in improved demand for US finished steel products as early as next year. In anticipation of this, they noted that flat rolled steel prices could potentially rise as much as $100/t over the next four weeks as a result of the November 5 Trump win.
Nucor’s California Steel Industries (CSI) monitor also increased $10/nt ($11/mt) to $810/nt ($893/mt) or $40.50/cwt. The CSI had been steady for the past two weeks at $800/nt $881/mt) or $40.00/cwt.
Over the past several months, flagging finished steel demand resulted in Nucor reducing its CSP as low as $650/nt ($717/mt), or $32.50/cwt. during the week of July 15. Since that time, however, prices have fallen only once for two weeks on October 14 and October 21 to $720/nt ($794/mt) or $36.00/cwt., from $730/nt ($805/mt) or $36.50/cwt. Market insiders told SteelOrbis that Nucor has kept its posted CSP pricing above the mills’ variable cost of doing business because selling below that price could cause the mill to lose money, they said.
Since the first series of price increases were announced on July 29, Nucor’s CSP has increased 11.1 percent to its recent $750/nt high. Prior to the increases, Nucor’s CSP price had lost nearly 22 percent of its value on flagging demand for finished steel products since the CSP was first released in early April at $830/nt ($915/mt) or $41.50/cwt.