NORTH AMERICAN NEWS
by JohnWolz, editor
GlobalFastenerNews.com
FIN Fastener Stock Index nears double-digit gain
The FIN Fastener Stock Index gained 9.5% in 2011, compared to a 0.6% growth rate for an index of related industrial stocks that found no safe haven in a volatile trading year.
T T
he FINdex was boosted by a 19.6% gain in the final quarter, when Alcoa was the only company to lose ground on its share value during the period. That reversed the trend from the previous quarter when only Chicago Rivet & Machine Co achieved a stock price gain, while many saw their stock value decline by double digits. Fastenal was the clear winner, achieving a stock price increase of 47.9% for the year. Others did well too: Grainger’s
share value gained 37.3%; Carpenter Technology shares rose 29.5%; Precision Castparts stock rose 18.4%; and Barnes Group stock increased 17.9%. But while some companies achieved big gains, others recorded big losses. Alcoa stock dropped 43.5% in value during the
year, most of it in the third quarter. Lawson Products also had a difficult year, with its shared reduced 36.7% for 2011. Other companies with stock losses of 10% or more included Kaydon Corp. (-24%); Park-Ohio (-14.7%); and ITW (-10.7%).
Nucor Fastener to press for full ITC investigation
In early December the U.S. International Trade Commission reaffirmed its original 2009 dismissal of the Nucor Fastener dumping case, which sought to have anti-dumping duties applied to certain fasteners imported from China and Taiwan.
he latest ruling is a setback for domestic fastener manufacturers, whose hopes were raised when an appeals court remanded the case in September for a re-determination by the ITC.
“Wow. I guess the message has been sent,” a fastener veteran
posted on Twitter. Nucor Fastener, however, insists imported fasteners were dumped on the market, putting unrealistic price pressure on domestic fastener producers during a time of decreasing demand. “The imports that were subject to the investigation had greater
than 50% market share,” Nucor Fastener counsel Dan Pickard of Wiley Rein LLP told
GlobalFastenerNews.com. “I would suggest that this significant amount of subject imports became even more injurious as the recession deepened,” Pickard explained. “In fact, the substantial volume of Chinese and Taiwanese
imports, when measured either absolutely or by market share, at a time of decreasing demand, were being sold at dumped and subsidized prices, which cost U.S. manufacturers sales - which injured both American manufacturers and their workers.” In considering whether there was a reasonable indication of a
threat of material injury, the ITC said it “did not find a likelihood of substantially increased imports of subject CSSF from China and Taiwan in the imminent future.” “Subject producers had excess capacity, were export-oriented,
and undersold the domestic like product in the U.S. market, but the record data indicated that subject imports had maintained an essentially steady presence in the United States.” The ITC concluded that subject imports would not enter the
U.S. market at prices “likely to significantly depress or suppress domestic prices in the imminent future.” While acknowledging that current economic conditions made
it unlikely that the fastener industry would “perform as well in the near term,” the ITC said “because the industry had performed solidly during the investigation period, the Commission did not find it to be vulnerable.”
24 Reached by phone at his office in Washington DC, Pickard
said there are some “real questions and vulnerabilities” in the ITC’s redetermination against injury. While he did not elaborate, he insisted Nucor Fastener would
continue to press its case to the CIT, which must now determine whether the commission met the requirements of the remand handed down by Judge Evan J. Wallach. In a 31-page ruling, Judge Wallach sent the case back to the ITC for a redetermination on two “holdings”: first, that the ITC improperly treated its import data as “comprehensive”; and that the ITC failed to identify a “rational basis for unqualified reliance on (unnamed domestic producer’s) questionnaire response. Judge Wallach has now been appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit so veteran CIT Judge Gregory W. Carman inherits the case. Pickard said Nucor Fastener will urge Judge Carman to press
the ITC for a full investigation, and it could be months before the judge rules on the matter. Even if Judge Carman decides in favor of importers, Nucor
Fastener could appeal the case to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which would review the case from scratch. Importers had hoped that the ITC’s redetermination against
Nucor Fastener would signal an end to the matter. Importer lead counsel Matthew McGrath told GlobalFastenerNews that Nucor Fastener “had multiple bites at the apple, and hopefully now it’s time to put this case to rest.” He insisted: “The marketplace doesn’t need this shadow of uncertainty hanging over it.” Pickard, however, expressed optimism that his client could
ultimately secure a full investigation by the ITC. “The end of the story is not clear yet,” he insisted. In its anti-dumping petition, filed in September 2009, Nucor
Fastener alleged average dumping margins of 145% for Chinese imports, and 74% for imports from Taiwan. Nucor Fastener employs more than 225 workers at its 500,000 square foot facility in St. Joe, Indiana.
Fastener + Fixing Magazine • Issue 73 January 2012
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