Yet another steel bubble???
It is March 2010 and with the soaring temperatures, steel prices are adding to the global warming along with shipping lines playing games to extract freight increases. Unfortunately, we still live in the world of bullying. It is either the big three in iron ore with an 80% price increase, or the steel producers (some what justified based on raw material inputs) or the shipping lines. In a world where getting 5% price increase requires persuasion, repeated meetings and presentations, some people can actually get these price increase extracted. That too in a world still gasping for breath after the global recession with a slippery recovery and a long hard road ahead to get back to the 2007 levels. Of course there are spots of brightness but these are far and few.
Newspapers, financial experts and economists are still cautious about recovery and the huge debts that come up for payment a couple of years down the line. Buyers are still buying for inventory (which admitted has run down). No one wants to take risks and mills still have substantial unused capacities to ramp up production. The world has moved into a bubble economy. To get back growth, new bubbles are being created (it can be called economic stimulus). To cure (or burst) one bubble, another one is created. We remain on a wing and a prayer. And the journey ahead gets increasingly turbulent.
dtd. 24/06/2010