Wire rod tags pegged to increase in January

Dec 03, 2009 | 11:29 AM | Corinna Petry

Wire rod sellers and buyers are projecting a $20- to $25-per-ton ($1- to $1.25-per-hundredweight) increase in pricing for January after tags held steady a month earlier.

More than half of those surveyed by AMM believe a hike in this range will stick, at least in the short term, driven by scrap pricing, limited production capacity and low rod inventories throughout the supply chain.

Most mills held their November pricing into December, and those tags have remained steady except for a little slippage experienced by some large-volume buyers on the low-carbon end of the spectrum.

Current market prices are at $30 per cwt for mesh-quality product and $33 per cwt for industrial quality, with high-carbon and cold-heading quality remaining at $38.25 and $40 per cwt, respectively.

"We had good order entries the past two weeks," according to an executive at one Midwest producer, which is still booking December orders. "Overall, things look decent—better than at this time last year. I think rod pricing will be up in January, primarily scrap driven."....