Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States slipped for this first time this month on an import glut and as lead times have stretched into the typically slower summer months.
American Metal Market's hot-rolled coil index stands at $44.05 per hundredweight ($881 per ton), down 0.5% from $44.26 per cwt ($885.20 per ton) previously.Lead times range between four and 10 weeks and average approximately five to six weeks, according to market participants and mill lead time schedules.Mills continue to seek $44-46 per cwt, and some sources think prices are more likely to hit $50 per cwt between July and September than to fall back to $40 per cwt.That is the reverse of a consensus heard earlier this year that anticipated prices could correct downward in late summer or early fall.What trumps: 232 deadline or summer doldrumsSources who think prices might fall further point to the summer doldrums combined with an import glut that developed in March and April. They think these factors could trump the Trump administration's Section 232 tariffs and quotas versus imported steel.The US imported 3.39 million tonnes of...