Posted on 12 Nov 2019
US sheet prices continue to move slowly upward as mills consolidate their recent $40/short ton increases, Kallanish hears from market sources.
Kallanish moved hot-rolled pricing Monday to $510-540/short ton, with cold-rolled inching up to $720-750/st. All prices are ex-works, domestic mill.
A source at one top-tier mill says list prices are now firmly at $560/st for hot-rolled and $760/st for cold-rolled, and transaction prices had been “... pretty consistently at $510-520/st (hot-rolled) prior to that.”
A Midwest buyer, however, points out that at least some mills are getting their average transaction prices up by holding the line on extras while discounting base prices.
“There is no way to figure the [... true] base price unless you are buying a hot-rolled product without extras, and almost all of our orders have an extra for grade or temper,” he says, adding that ranges remain wide because “... somewhere in this crazy market they are correct.”
