We attended Steel Business Briefing’s Steel Markets North America 2012 conference last week, and one of the most interesting parts of the conference was the live interactive pricing and demand survey which showed that most participants anticipate further increases in steel prices, scrap prices and steel demand.

One observation we found fascinating was that respondents were far more optimistic on HRC pricing than rebar, with most participants forecasting an uptick as high as 18% for HRC and just 10% for rebar, despite entering peak construction season and people continuing to talk about new sheet capacity impacting the domestic market.

Some 67% of respondents expect hot-rolled sheet prices to peak at $800/ton or below, while 15% expect prices to peak at $850/ton, 11% believe prices have already peaked, and 7% think prices will peak at over $900/ton.  At the time of the conference, domestic HRC ranged from $680-690/ton.

For rebar, some 47% of respondents expect prices to peak at $800/ton or below, while 31% believe rebar prices have already peaked at the $730-750/ton range.  Some 19% of participants are forecasting rebar prices to peak at $840/ton, with 3% expecting rebar to peak at over $880/ton.

Some 40% of respondents expect overall steel prices to peak in 2Q, while 27% of participants are forecasting prices to peak in 1Q as well as 3Q, with the remaining 6% expecting prices to peak in 4Q.

On the scrap front, some 47% of respondents believe that shredded scrap prices will peak at $500/ton or below, while 38% expect prices to reach $525/ton.  At the time of the conference, domestic shredded scrap ranged from $440-445/ton.

Some 60% of respondents expect steel demand to strengthen over the next six months, while 20% expect stable demand and just 9% believe demand is set to fall.  Some 11% believe demand will rise and fall, but did not know which trend would play out.