Steel Prices Soar.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 13, 1912:
Industry Fears Runaway Market Conditions Menace Finished Product Trade.
Special to The New York Times.
    PITTSBURGH, Penn., Oct 12.— The steel industry closed the week with grave expressions of fear that the finished product branch of the trade was approaching runaway market conditions. The tremendous reservations of bars, all kinds of merchant steel, shapes, and plates for forward delivery and the jumping of prices $1 to $2 a ton on some of these products led to a suspicion of speculative buying. The mills have fought the tendency to speculate in forward deliveries ever since the present movement began. The Steel Corporation has refused tempting reservations for forward shipment, when they were not accompanied by actual specifications. The mere fact that new business filed the last week in September with independents and the Steel Corporation aggregated higher total tonnages than any other week in the month confirms the suspicion that orders are not in strict accord with bare requirements.
    For three months mills have labored to prevent prices being pushed to artificial levels. Now, with the total ultimate capacity of the industry taken up for four to six months, independents are starting to inflate prices to a pitch that it is feared will be a little more than "the traffic will bear."
    The Steel Corporation has consistently held prices on steel bars at the base level of 1.35c, though it had little tonnage available between now and the middle of the first quarter. But when one or two Eastern independents quoted up to the 1.45c Pittsburgh base for bars for this year's delivery, the Steel Corporation withdrew its minimum and this week formally advanced bars to 1.40c. Independents started this week to quote plates and structural material up to 1.50c, and some business is known to have been placed at that level, whereat the Steel Corporation on Tuesday formally withdrew its old minimum of 1.40c on plates and shapes and announced 1.45c, still $1 a ton below the forward quotations of the independents.
    For two weeks the trade has been predicting an advance in wire and wire products. The Steel Corporation was expected to take the initiative, as it usually does on wire. When no announcement was forthcoming from the corporation's subsidiary, the American Steel and Wire Company, the initiative was finally taken on Thursday by the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company, a local independent — and the newest independent in the wire trade — with an announcement of a $1 advance, to 1.55c for plain wire and 1.75c for wire nails. By the close of the week practically all the independents had followed the example of the local concern. The Steel Corporation is expected to come into line early the coming week. Even cut nails have shared in this advance, taking a $2 advance, to 1.65c.
    The Steel Corporation earlier in the week advanced blue annealed sheets $1 a ton, or to 1.60c. This advance had been made by some of the independent producers before the close of Sept. 1. Some independents were asking 1.65c for blue annealed before the close of the week
    It is predicted that if this riot of profit-taking continues for another week, there will be some withdrawals of legitimate inquiry, and a threat of demoralization of the market later on. Prices in other metal lines are not up to such a sufficiently high pitch that the steel industry can afford to start to try for new high marks. The hysterical conditions in shapes, plates, and bars are being felt in other finished steel lines. It is predicted that a general advance in sheets will be announced within another week or two. Pipe, on which there has been a steady demand for forward shipment, is also receiving attention.
    Makers of crude lines have been partly successful in keeping the hysteria from affecting their products — although in the case of crude steel, the genuine famine in prompt supplies has resulted in a minimum of about $26, Pittsburgh mill, on billets — which compares with $19.50, Pittsburgh mill, the ruling price just a year ago. The billet shortage in the district this week resulted in the stoppage of two of the finishing mills of the Steel Corporation for a part of the week, waiting on steel — one of these being a large tin plate plant in the Shenango Valley.
    The iron market has been kept steady during the week in the face of purchases of a total of about 60,000 tons of steel-making and foundry irons since Monday. Two steel companies have taken a total or 40,000 tons of basic and Bessemer iron, most of it for delivery in 1913. The Bessemer iron market has held at $17, valley furnace, the same figure that ruled at the close of last week, despite predictions at the opening of the week of a twenty-five-cent advance. Basic iron has shown a slight rise on contracts for forward delivery, purchases of 10,000 tons for first quarter and 5,000 tons for second quarter showing a price of $16.10 at furnace up to April 1, and $16.25 for April-July shipments. This is a gain for basic iron, which last week showed a level of $16 at furnace for any delivery. Inquiries from Western Ohio, Detroit, and Eastern Pennsylvania are pending for Bessemer iron, and the prediction is still made of an advance on sales for delivery into the new year. Foundry iron shows the most conservative tone of all, with the price steady at $16, valley furnace, for any delivery up to July of next year, in the face of sales of upward of 20,000 tons during the week.
    The labor situation in the Connellsville coke district has become slightly easier, and production in that region for last week was within a shade of the old high mark of 400,000 tons. Prompt coke still commands a premium over the $3 level, however, sales having been made at $3.10 to $3.25 for delivery for the remainder of the present quarter.