STEEL PRICES TODAY
As of 2026-09-01, US hot-rolled coil (HRC) trades at $1,212 per ton on the front-month futures (U.S. Midwest Domestic Hot-Rolle) — +1.8% over the past month, +29.9% since early January, and +52.5% over the past year.
Why steel is moving — and why it's not the oil war
Steel is the resource on our board that the Hormuz war barely touched: during the February–March blockade spike, when Brent rose 63%, HRC moved about 3%. What owns this price is trade policy — the Section 232 tariff regime keeps imports expensive and domestic mills priced accordingly — plus mill capacity and the construction cycle. Energy reaches it as a cost (furnaces, freight), but Washington, not Tehran, sets the direction. If you price steel off "commodities" as a bloc, this is the one that will surprise you.
Method — what this print is and is not
- The number: CME US Midwest Domestic Hot-Rolled Coil futures, front month, daily settle; refreshed with every data update.
- What it is not: the CRU index. Physical steel contracts overwhelmingly settle on CRU's weekly assessment, which is subscription-only. Futures track it closely but can lead or lag by days — if you buy physical tonnage, your invoice follows CRU, and this page is the free, fast proxy for where it is heading.
- Coupling to oil: our 30-day coupling reads near zero for steel most months — shown live on the board, correlation not causation.
FAQ
Are steel prices going up or down right now? Up: +1.8% over the past month on the futures. The year-to-date move (+29.9%) is the bigger story, and it is tariff-driven.
Does cheap oil make steel cheaper? Only at the margin — fuel and freight are real inputs, but the 2026 tape shows steel ignoring oil's biggest moves in both directions. The channels are explained per-resource on your desk.
What about rebar or plate? Different products price off different benchmarks; HRC is the most liquid US reference and the one futures trade. Use it for direction, not for a specific product invoice.