Final Thoughts

On August 1st Steel Market Update celebrated our seventh (7th) anniversary and began our 8th year in operation. Some day I am going to figure out how many newsletters and articles I have written about the industry over these past seven years (not counting the articles written before I took the newsletter public in 2008 – I actually starting writing SMU in 2004 for my customers). I would venture to guess the number of typewritten pages would be in the tens of thousands.

I have to take a moment and thank all of our subscribers who have supported Steel Market Update over the years. SMU started as a one man show, Diana didn’t even work for me in the beginning. My timing was perfect – I incorporated and began selling memberships in August of 2008 – literally two months from the market crash and ensuing “Great Recession.” Between August 1, 2008 and the end of September 30, 2008 I sold enough memberships to keep the company going. After September 30th it was a struggle as companies were being hit daily with falling steel prices, being way over-inventoried and not knowing what the future held for their company (or them personally).