Market trends: USA/Flat rolled products: The year starts out on a weak note

摘要

The flat rolled products market seemed to limp into the end of the year, worn down by falling end-use demand from mid-year on and customers who were slicing inventories even more. Distributor inventories of sheet & coil were pared another 5,500 tons, on top of a big 16,200 ton whack in November. Days' inventory bumped up a bit, indicating that distributors are having a tougher time keeping up with sinking demand. Some would argue that inventories are about as low as they can get, but in this current economic climate no one is expecting any big bounce soon. Common alloy sheet shipments were down a further 13 percent month-to-month in December. This closed out the year on a really weak fourth quarter, in which shipments started falling at double digit year-over-year rates after holding their own through much of the year. Indeed, shipments were actually up marginally through July before taking a 4-5 percent tumble over the August-September period. For all of 2008 shipments were down in the 3-4 percent range. The picture is much worse when can sheet is excluded. Shipments excluding can sheet fell 10-12 percent. And the near-term outlook for shipments is not encouraging, either. December orders for sheet &plate (ex-can sheet) fell 10 percent from November. Order volume is seasonally light in December, granted, but compared to December 2007 orders are down a sharp 27 percent. CRU's industry contacts did not report any signs of an imminent re-stocking in the cards. There might have been a very mild pick up in business during the middle of the month, but it seemed to fade as January came to a close.