William Ellard

Commercial Metals Earnings and the Domestic Steel Market

"With Oil prices likely to keep surging, it is very important to note that will stifile economic expansion and, therefore, eat away the demand for steel."

Tibis;
I actually do not agree with this. Higher oil prices are a sign of a strong global economy, hence strong demand for steel. Like I posted in the article, CMC is expanding so it can ship overseas and make more money - If US demand falls, CMC would shift that supply overseas and make better margins.

If oil prices cause the global economy to fall, then oil will fall also.....

Commercial Metals Earnings and the Domestic Steel Market

"What is you opinion on the penalty tariffs recently cleared by the U.S Int'l Trade commission "for circular welded pipe"? Is this a trend?"

Steel;
I think that global economics are already dealing with this issue. But it is good to see the steel firms standing up against dumping. My main concern in the past has been that many countries subsidize energy to the point that its cheap to make steel products, and hence easy to dump into the US...

Steel Stocks: Update from Recent Earnings

I still really like the internationals also: PKX, GGB, MT, etc..., but I think the domestics are better valuations right now. Its not just the weak dollar per say, its global inflation helping the domestics. Coking coal, and coal prices are running 30% higher internationally vs the US. Also with energy prices soo high, imports into the US are drying up.

US steel inventories are also very very low - another factor for better future cash flows from domestics vs intl....