China Metals Weekly (CMW), August 10^th newsletter reported that prices moved-up robustly on all product lines on a month over month (m/m), basis. Angles advanced 12.7% to $568 per ton, channels increased by 12.4% to $555. Beams rose 11.6% to $549.

For the 12 months ending June 2017, US mill shipments of long products fell 660,000 tons or 2.9%. US domestic consumption of long products fell 464,000 tons or 1.7% over the same timeframe. Import share of long products averaged 23.9% over the past 12 months, up 1.0% year on year, (y/y).

In its July update, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) consensus non-residential forecast is for aggregate spending to increase by 3.8% year on year (y/y), in 2017. Non-residential spending is projected to increase an additional 3.6% in 2018.

Special Bar Quality licenses year to date (YTD), for July totaled 287,527 tons, up 9.1% from last year’s YTD 263,614 tons. July license requests were for 45,857 tons, down slightly from the April, May, June average of 48,211 tons.

New orders for durable goods (ADG), were flat month on month (m/m), in June at $236.0 billion. On a three month moving average (3MMA), assessment, ADG increased by 0.5% m/m and was up 3.2% year on year (y/y). Most of the monthly gains originated from strong nondefense aircraft orders.

Raw steel production for the week ending July 22^nd, 2017 was 1.773 tons at capacity utilization of 76.1%, its highest levels since June 2016. The most recent four week capacity utilization rate edged-up to 74.9% at an average production rate pf 1.747M tons per week.