U.S. steel stocks fall, KeyBanc sees challenged global steel environment in 2019

Olympic Steel

28/05/2019 16:34

** U.S. steel stocks fall, led by a 6% decline in AK Steel
shares  AKS.N  to a 3-year low of $1.87
    ** Crude steel output from China, the world's top producer
and consumer of the alloy, rose 12.7% to 85 mln tonnes in April;
global crude steel production rose 6.4% to 157 mln tonnes
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nAPN016LH0
    ** Chinese production remains robust in muted global
backdrop - KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Philip Gibbs 
    ** "We continue to believe the muted global production
outside China and slowing global demand trends will present a
challenged global steel spread environment in 2019 vs. a very
robust 2018" - Gibbs
   ** U.S. stocks down: U.S. Steel Corp  X.N  3%, TimkenSteel
Corp  TMST.N  3%, Olympic Steel Inc  ZEUS.O  2%, Steel Dynamics
 STLD.O  1.2% and Cleveland Cliffs  CLF.N  0.3% 
    ** China's iron ore jumped to a fresh record on Tuesday, but
the rally fizzled out, as bets continued that there could be a
further squeeze in supply of the steelmaking feedstock from
Brazil, while domestic demand remained brisk  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2340X8

 (Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru)
 ((SanjanaSitara.Shivdas@thomsonreuters.com))