The sentiment for finished steel prices continued to slide as the November scrap buy week was underway, according to the most recent S&P Global Commodity Insights US steel market participant survey.
In the survey of US producers, distributors, traders, and end-users, 87.1% expected finished prices to fall further during November, up from October, where 74.2% were bearish, with only 3.2% expected prices to increase even as the domestic mills continued with outages and idled furnaces to curb supply output as demand has weakened in the fourth quarter.
As trade begins for November delivered scrap prime grades fell by $30/lt by the mills and shredded scrap prices moved lower by $20/lt so far as HMS scrap exports have taken out the September lows.
Both the domestic and export markets have been trying to find a bottom despite seven consecutive months of falling domestic scrap prices including November, which has kept the pressure on finished prices, especially across long products despite fabrication still seeing a backlog of demand.
