Hot-rolled coil prices in the United States continued to slide as the market waits to see whether a recent round of mill price increases will stop the declines.
Fastmarkets AMM's hot-rolled coil index stands at $40.76 per hundredweight ($815.20 per ton), down 1.3% from $41.28 ton a week earlier and off 11.1% from a July peak of $45.84 per cwt.Lead times average three to five weeks, market participants said.Prices up or stem the bleeding?The latest dip comes after US mills rolled out a round of $2-per-cwt price increases.The increase, initiated by Nucor, "will help hold prices from further declines in the near term, although the market for large volumes is probably [$40 per cwt] in some regions," Morgan Stanley analyst Piyush Sood wrote in a report dated Friday October 12 and titled "Flat is The New Up."Prices will probably hold steady in the fourth quarter and move upward in the first quarter thanks to strong...