Spot market prices for US domestic cold rolled coil continue to hold at $42.50-$44.00 cwt. ($937-$970/mt or $850-$880/nt), ex-mill, reflecting no change in the past several weeks.
The current wildcard, sources note, relates to where scrap prices settle in January, as this could have an impact on CRC prices moving forward. The current expectation is that scrap prices will trend down during the current month’s buy cycle.
“We’ve heard [scrap] is going down and depending on where scrap lands, that could have an impact on CRC prices,” a source said. “For now, cold rolled is still stable. We’re keeping tabs on the market as a whole and we’re trying to be smart with the buys that we’re making.”
Others, however, think that there's a chance that US flat rolled steel mills could try to push out a price announcment by the end of the week; any such announcment, sources note, may be more about preventing further price erosin that it would be getting prices to move upward.