Final Thoughts

Welcome back to those who have returned to your offices for the next big summer push. I spent a portion of my day today trying to get a sense of how business conditions are for those with whom I was speaking. With the exception of one service center located on the East Coast who told me that business conditions were much better but the competition didn’t seem to have a game plan on what it means to make money when times are good, everyone else was telling me things have gotten better.

As we reported in last Thursday evening’s edition of Steel Market Update, our flat rolled steel survey conducted this past week was showing 50 percent of our respondents as reporting demand as improving. This was only the second time in the history of our survey when 50 percent or more of the respondents were this bullish (the other time was at the beginning of May).