Prices for hot-rolled coil in the United States will drop as low as $500 per short ton ($25 per hundredweight) in the coming months before climbing to $720 per ton ($36 per cwt) in early 2020, according to top executives from World Steel Dynamics (WSD).
"We think [the HRC price] can drop to $500 [per ton] in the months ahead, and then we'll rally to about $720 when we have the steel boom early next year," WSD managing partner Peter Marcus said during a keynote speech on Tuesday June 18, speaking at the Steel Success Strategies conference in New York, co-sponsored by Fastmarkets."I am feeling extraordinarily bullish and confident that we're going to have a strong global economy in the next four years," he added, citing a potential trade agreement between China and the US. If such a deal is reached by early next year, that could unleash the "pent-up euphoria and demand" that has accumulated psychologically both in the steel industry and the global economy, according to WSD.Fastmarkets AMM's daily Midwest...