Houston — Customer inquiries at both the mill and service center levels were yet to translate into orders, extending the buyers' strike in the US sheet market, according to sources Friday.
The Platts TSI US hot-rolled coil assessment dropped by $4.50/st to $840/st, while the daily Platts TSI US cold-rolled coil assessment ticked up 25 cents to $946.25/st.
Overall it was a quiet week with buyers beginning to fish for lower HRC prices, according to a mill source. Buyers were indicating competing mills were more aggressive and willing to sell at $800/st but when pressed, many of the indications were just market chatter and could not be confirmed, the mill source said.
Other buyers approached the mill looking for prices under $800/st claiming that if he would lower his prices they would be able to secure the business from their customers, the mill source added.
Still, overall spot buying activity remained sparse. He indicated the price for HRC was between $820-$840/st but buyers were apprehensive to put together orders large enough to buy at $820/st leaving activity at the low-end of the range even more limited.
There has been a lot of quoting going on for sizeable tonnages in the market which he expected to translate into buying soon.
A service center source echoed the mill source's comments. "It is busy with quote activity both from our customers and to the mills but no one is finalizing anything. It has a feeling that if one or two big orders were taken and lead times moved, then this thing could pop, at least for the short term," he said.
He did admit the other scenario could be buyers continue to hold out causing mills to lower prices.
"I am sure people are asking to and/or hoping to buy at $800/st but I haven't seen any capitulation on that yet ... I wouldn't buy north of there for any kind of volume," he added.
The combined Platts TSI price index uses a volume-weighted average calculation -- according to TSI's standard -- to determine value on an ex-works Indiana basis.
