Sounds like a lotta whining. Interesting they did not mention the steel tarrifs.
The moneymen are saying there is a big steel bubble and it is about to pop, causing a collapse in steel prices. It's all greek to me.
US Steel stock is at $26 today.
United States Steel Corporation (X : NYSE) Stock Price & News - Google Finance
Nucor Corporation (NUE : NYSE) Stock Price & News - Google Finance
Hot rolled coil on 4/29, $1500/ton
US Midwest Domestic Hot-Rolled Coil Steel Futures Historical Prices - Investing.com
Steel prices have tripled. Now Bank of America is sounding the alarm - CNN
Some quotes:
The pandemic brought the American steel industry to its knees last spring, forcing manufacturers to shut down production as they struggled to survive the imploding economy. But as the recovery got underway, mills were slow to resume production, and that created a massive steel shortage.
Now, the reopening of the economy is driving a steel boom so strong that some are convinced it will end in tears.
After bottoming out around $460 last year, US benchmark hot-rolled coil steel prices are now sitting at around $1,500 a ton, a record high that is nearly triple the 20-year average.
Steel stocks are on fire. US Steel (X), which crashed to a record low last March amid bankruptcy fears, has skyrocketed 200% in just 12 months. Nucor (NUE) has spiked 76% this year alone.
Phil Gibbs, director of metals equity research at KeyBanc Capital Markets, agreed that steel prices are at unsustainable levels.
"This would be like $170-a-barrel oil. At some point, people will say, 'F this, I'm not going to drive, I will take the bus,'" Gibbs told CNN Business. "The correction will be very intense. It's just a matter of when and how it happens."
Steel is just the latest shortage to hit the US economy as it recovers from a pandemic that scrambled supply chains and set off sharp shifts in demand.
Everything from computer chips and lumber to chlorine and tanker truck drivers are in short supply. Manufacturers, restaurants and other businesses are also desperate for workers.
Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency warned this week that there isn't enough copper, lithium and other raw earth minerals available to make global clean energy ambitions a reality. The world risks "running out of copper," Bank of America strategists said in a recent note to clients.
The good news, for steel buyers at least, is that analysts say all of the US steel production capacity that was idled during the pandemic has returned.
That's why Tanners said she's very confident the shortage will soon end, causing steel prices to collapse. History shows that steel stocks "tend to peak" a month or so before steel prices, Tanners wrote in her report.
She said US Steel in particular is vulnerable to a commodity downturn because it has the most amount of debt and the greatest need to spend to upgrade its plants.
If the Biden administration rolls back even just some of those tariffs, it would ease supply constraints and weigh on steel prices.
Tanners thinks that is likely to happen in the next 12 months.
"We are protecting an industry where there is scarcity and prices are almost triple historical averages," she said.