The hot-rolled steel market in Europe is at a standstill. The market was expected to have difficulty recovering in the next few weeks as most countries are still on holiday. Besides, the current inventory is still high, and destocking after the holidays is a top priority. Therefore, it was estimated that the soonest market buying and price momentum will start in mid-September.

Some steel mills were confident about the market outlook and believed that the hot-rolled steel prices to rise by EUR 50 or even more in October, under support of the expected EU’s rate cut in September.

However, downstream buyers believed that prices could rise significantly only if steel mills further reduced production or the market was stimulated by interest rate cuts.