The Material Report #016

This fortnight in 30 seconds

Bar prices reset in late August, and no single mill increase explains it

Late in August, distributor list pricing reset on the bars machine shops actually buy: the 12L14 hex in your screw machine, the 4140 round in your saw. The carbon, free-machining, and alloy grades took different paths through July to get there.

The mill notices were product-specific. Nucor raised merchant channels, angles, flats, squares, and rounds $30/st after July 15, and Gerdau announced a similar move the week before. Gerdau then raised engineered bar $60/st on July 31. Effective August 7, three mills added $30/st on merchant angles, rounds, and flats. A separate Nucor notice added $60/st to thermally treated engineered bar and quench-and-tempered cold-finished bar effective August 31.

That last notice overlaps part of the late alloy move, but a price list does not say which products fall under which notice. Merchant bar, cold-finished carbon bar, and treated alloy bar did not all receive one common letter. September ferrous scrap also settled sideways, with Chicago prime grades unchanged for an eighth month.

Treat this as a grade-and-form reset, not a universal $/lb pass-through. Re-run any bar quote dated before mid-July. For a higher quote, ask which mill notice, product class, and effective date it reflects.

From our benchmark

I compared one national distributor's list pricing for standard stock. I took each product's weekly median, complete Monday-through-Sunday weeks only, and measured the median change across products present in both weeks. The table compares August 17 with August 31.

The timing matters. Most carbon and free-machining grades made their late step on September 2. The alloy grades had already moved earlier, then reset again on September 1~2; the August 31-effective treated-bar notice overlaps that last step. The outlier was 1018 flat: it fell in the August 10 week, recovered part of that loss in late August, and still ended $0.06/lb below July 6 across 237 products. Repeating the comparison only on the same size-and-source pairs preserved the direction in every row.

This was not a proxy for all steel. From August 17 to August 31, broad steel rose 1.4% across 1,966 products and A36 plate rose 1.4% across 12, while A500 Grade B rectangular and square tube was flat across 103. Since July 6, broad steel was up 3.9% across 1,956 products. The late bar move is meaningful, but the exact grade still matters more than a broad direction.

The current week contains two preliminary days, September 7 and 8. These bar medians had not moved again by article close, but a partial week is context, not a headline endpoint.

Pricing notes

Steel sheet: Nucor's posted hot-rolled price rose $10 to $1,180/st on August 24, then another $5 to $1,185/st on August 31. Ask which weekly reference a September quote uses. The latest verified posted price at article close is $1,185/st.

Stainless: September surcharge schedules did not rise by one universal amount. Outokumpu's standard flat-product schedule rose $0.0139/lb on 304L/304, from $0.9368/lb in August to $0.9507/lb in September, and $0.0517/lb on 316L, from $1.7232/lb to $1.7749/lb. Chemistry variants carry different figures. On any sizable 304/316 buy, make the quote name both the mill and the surcharge month.

Aluminum: Canada's official counter-tariff list took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET September 8, including 50% rates on listed US steel and aluminum goods entering Canada. That does not set a domestic 6061 price directly. In distributor list pricing, 6061 angle, flat bar, and round bar each regained $0.10/lb in the August 31 week, across 47, 149, and 67 products. Sheet was flat across 12. The three bar and extrusion forms remained $0.15/lb below July 27 across 262 products, so this was a partial retrace.

Copper / brass: the three-month LME zinc price touched $3,949.50 a tonne August 26, a four-year high, with exchange warehouse stocks near 95,000 tonnes after a 64% decline from December. C360's nominal chemistry is 35.4% zinc, so a copper pullback alone will not bring brass back down while the other leg of the alloy inflates. Lock near-term brass needs, and when a brass quote moves, ask whether the change is copper, zinc, or a mill adder.

Cost pressure: ISM's August Prices Index held at 71.1, unchanged from July, with buyers naming steel and aluminum among the drivers. Budget fourth-quarter material at today's costs, not on assumed relief.

Diesel and freight: EIA's August 31 survey, released September 1, put on-highway diesel at $5.599 a gallon, down $0.053 from August 24 but up from $5.454 on August 17. If your carrier reset its surcharge base in August, watch whether the latest dip shows up on this week's bill.

What I'm watching next

• Sheet: the next Nucor weekly letter. Until it is verified, $1,185/st from August 31 remains the reference in this report.

• Canada implementation: if you ship parts north, have your customs broker confirm the tariff line and any applicable exemption before quoting the delivered price.

• September 14 to 19: IMTS in Chicago. Ask tooling suppliers for a current carbide surcharge and lead time on the inserts you actually run. A general market answer is less useful than a dated quote on your SKU.

• September 15 to 16: the Fed. Price fourth-quarter equipment financing at today's rate until the decision is published; do not build a material buy around a forecasted move.

If a bar quote moved on you since July, in either direction, email me. One line with the grade and the percent is plenty.

Wondering whether a material quote is high? Run it through Quote Check, paste the quote, and see where it lands against published distributor pricing for that alloy and size. Free, takes about a minute.

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