HRC price stable at $51.25/cwt in US, but for how long?

Fastmarkets’ daily steel hot-rolled coil index, fob mill US was calculated at $51.25 per hundredweight ($1,025 per short ton) on Wednesday, up by 0.1% from $51.22 per cwt a day earlier and by 2.4% from $50.06 per cwt on December 23.

Input providers submitted assessments at exactly $51.25 per cwt in both the distributor and producer sub-indices. The assessor carried over non-transaction data in the consumer sub-index from the previous pricing period due to a lack of liquidity there.

Heard in the market
There is not much activity or dialogue this week, given the holiday schedule and lack of spot tons, some sources said. Many buyers have “sticker shock,” worsened by recent increases in truck freight rates due to a driver shortage, they said.

The current price rally is not expected to end until the summer, some market participants said. Prices could start to fall before then in the form of small corrections here and there, but prices will not drop precipitously overall, they said.

Quote of the day
“The price is what anyone will pay right now, that’s the crazy thing,” a producer source said. “If you need coil… what’s that worth to you?”