Steel Buyers Showing Caution in November

Steel buyers are showing a little less confidence that the trend for general economic activity will improve in the next six months according to the ISM Steel Buyers Survey for November. The percentage of buyers who believe activity will remain the same increased from 46.2 percent to 66.7 percent this month with the balance expecting conditions to improve. Likewise caution was seen for sales and production in the next six months, with 60 percent saying activity will stay at current levels, up from 38.5 percent last month.

With no new orders and at the present production rate, the current order book would last 1-2 months for 42.9 percent of buyers, and 2-4 months for 35.7 percent. Those whose order book would last six or more months jumped from 15.4 percent to 21.4 percent.