Hot-rolled coil prices in the US fell Wednesday as mounting pressure continued in an oversupplied market.
Prices for HRC fell to $400-$420/st from $410-$430/st Tuesday. Cold-rolled coil prices stayed level at $540-$550/st day on day. All prices are normalized to a Midwest (Indiana) ex-works basis.
New orders for mills have become scarce as buyers have maintained their focus of selling inventory and are on the sidelines about taking any new physical position on material.
Multiple sources have indicated that current supply at the ports and availability from service centers and distributors are suppressing the need to buy material from the mills.
One mill source said that the market is slow as "people are fearful to take a position [and] nobody wants to buy." He agreed that current pricing was "muddy and all over the place."
Hot-rolled coil pricing was between $400-$420/st, while CRC and hot-dipped galvanized base pricing was around $540/st, the mill source said. But he had not seen HRC go below $400/st.
He added that it would not be surprising if buyers were asking for lower numbers to place an order for HRC, CRC and hot-dipped galvanized.
One Midwest fabricator said a mill was pursuing him for a 100 st HDG order, which he had been delaying. In addition, his CRC price from another mill had been $540/st last week, and he believed it could likely be lower this week.
He said October is usually a good business month for the company and he doesn't believe it will be bad. But he noted activity is much slower than it has been historically.
Recent orders for two or three truckloads of material have had distributors aggressively competing, he said. "When I usually had one low guy, now I have three or four for an order," he added.
He said he was just offered stock imported CRC at under $500/st for an order of under 500 st in the Midwest.
A second service center source added buyers had a wide array of options to buy material from stock at the ports. He said availability was not an issue and you can essentially pick and choose what coils you want from whatever desired country of origin.
A trader agreed that stock at the ports was widely available and noted that current HRC offers for stock in the Houston area are around $380/st, while CRC is closer to $500-$520/st.
