Prices for imported flat-rolled steel remain well above domestic prices despite recent gains in US tags, market participants said.
The result: The market for foreign flat-rolled steel continues to be sluggish because US buyers have little reason to buy steel that won't arrive until the fourth quarter and - assuming current market conditions persist - at higher prices than domestic material, sources said."The US steel market is the cheapest market in the world," one trader source said. "The Far East and China are the premium market. The US has become China, and China has become the US, steel-wise."US flat-rolled steel prices, typically the highest in the world, fell below prices in China, in the past the world's lowest price, in late July and early August.Sources questioned whether that inversion, which typically occurs only briefly, was an indication that domestic prices had bottomed out or whether it might persist as a symptom of a more fundamental economic...