The relevance of the study of the steel market and the need to use steel in almost all spheres of the national economy of any country has been substantiated in the article. The aim of the article is to study the characteristics and trends of the modern world steel market. A systems approach has been used which enabled to consider steel producers as a consistent system. The method of the analysis of key indicators of global steel production dynamics has been used as well. The features and modern trends in the world steel market have been described, such as: the growth of steel production and conjoined lower capacity utilization; slowdown of consumption of steel products; decrease in financial performance of the industry; decrease in imports of rolled metal products from developed countries and reduction in global trade. The key factors affecting the steel price have been identified in the article: export price for actualization of forecast for prices in the national market; delivery of rolled metal products to steel markets; the volume of production in industries that are major consumers of steel; macroeconomic indicators such as GDP per capita, the money supply; utilization of capacity in the world, the development of China's economy; the cost of steel. Scientific novelty of the article consists in definition of the modern trends in the world steel market, based on the analysis of key performance indicators and relations between the producer’s leaders. The practical significance is reflected in the determination of the factors influencing the price of steel, consideration of which will allow optimizing related processes in the metallurgical industry. The result of the article is the review of rather complicated situation in the global steel market, taking into account the position of China, certain factors influence the formation of market prices for steel in the world today. Prospects for future research will be aimed at the factors influencing the steel market, taking into account the links between them and the development of a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the system.