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(AMM) Steel centers hoping for fall uptick after soft summer
August 17, 2010 - 20:43 GMT
Location:
CHICAGO
KEYWORDS:
service center
,
steel
,
inventories
,
shipments
,
Metals Service Center Institute
,
MSCI
U.S. steel service center inventories inched up a mere 1 percent last month despite average daily shipments falling 6.7 percent from June, according to the Metals Service Center Institute (MSCI). In Canada, inventories slid 3.1 percent as average daily shipments tumbled 13.7 percent.
Some distributors plan to purchase more steel in anticipation of improved autumn demand and some have made buys in advance of price increases, they told AMM Tuesday, but many are lacking confidence in the market in the short term and will purchase very conservatively.
"Coming off July, demand has been soft," a service center executive in Illinois said Tuesday. "We've got opportunities to get into rollings but I feel less confident than I did earlier in the year, given the stock market volatility and (depressed) housing starts. We're only going to buy what we can pre-sell and what we have orders for. I don't see the increase in demand yet so we are being very cautious."
On the other hand, the executive supports the mill-announced steel price increases. "They are meant to prevent the bottom from...
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Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC.
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