4 billion aid promised by the IMF in OctoberThey had been established on the basis of growth between 0There is a natural cooperation between usBut they approach maturity in dispersed order44 billion euros the history not stutters so far6 billion on 17 February in addition to the already insured 17We begin to talk even with the RepublicansA serve with fungi and the whites of leeksAnd many service activities are now the industryMost of them refuse to speak on the subjectAs in the 19th century, steel market prices set by mutual agreement between buyers and sellers, without organized market, so without reference to price neutral and transparent, without indexation of contracts, without opportunities for coverage. The price of steel is highly volatile, as all raw materials, they are equipped with or non-term contracts.
Steel producers have always considered not as a "convenience" steel but a highly diversified product. As they are privatize and focus, they are also persuaded that they reinforce their control of prices, that they are able to eradicate this volatility by themselves. Also they reject any form of organization or market regulation, so any futures market.
It is said that the recent collapse of prices for steel, who brutally succeeded an exceptional period of high and stable prices, were short. Or in the absence of indexation of contracts, the price volatility undermines the quality of relations with clients and suppliers: the long-term contracts, which governed for many years the essence of relationships with automakers and appliance, have disappeared, prices to renegotiate more short term, contract failures multiply. the same degradation is underway for relations with the suppliers of ores, petrologists, coal.
Return to trade relations focused on the real problems would be reduced by the recognition of a neutral and transparent external price reference, which implies in practice the existence of a futures market. Of course it will be more difficult for steel for the non-ferrous: steel is more difficult to standardize, less easily storable. But the oil and agricultural products futures markets show that these difficulties would be overcome.
Resistance is a cultural, both also producers in many customers: it is in market power, noble steel, and the design of their role of sellers and buyers, who fear the price transparency does deprive them of their reason to be. However, fear that a reference of external price deprives the steel producers of their market power is not more serious than to blaming the thermometer for temperature. On the theory of the influence of the financial actors on the price, just to compare recent changes of the prices of different contents first, or non-organized markets, to the relative. Then come the arguments of opportunity: this is never the time, the conditions for such a reform being felt as negative either by buyers or sellers.
How out of this impasse: Steelworkers demonize the futures market. Major customers consider, at best, the modernisation of the steel market, this is the case of the steel. The banks would have everything to gain by the emergence of a steel futures market, but they expect that the awards do.
The main stock of metals, the LME well launched early 2008 first steel contract, but the LME remained prisoner of his model with stocks, unsuitable to the diversity of steel products. On the economic science, there is little econometric studies to verify that a futures market would not increase the volatility of prices, or even fear associated with the spectre of the "commoditisation" that he would not lead the price down. Or indeed encrypted evidence that a futures market "creates the value": the issue is located on another dimension, that of the "risk management". Finally it is unfortunately impossible to simulate a posteriori the impact would have had a market run on past price developments.
At a time where financiers and politicians engage in a re-regulation of the financial markets, the Steelworkers would do well to recognize the unavoidability of the volatility of the prices of steel, and to acquire the means to manage this volatility. A steel futures market would open up further opportunities for cover on iron ore, metallurgical coal, or even scrap: Steelworkers would discover that vertical integration is not the only possible strategy of "risk management" (cf article of Philippe Escande of 25/11/2008 on Arcelor). An "organized" market also provides a repository of prices in accordance with the law, which is not possible otherwise.
