Steel Market Update (SMU) conducted its second steel market survey for the month of December. SMU invites close to 800 companies to participate in a survey about the flat rolled steel industry in North America. We concluded our mid-December survey on Friday of this past week and released a portion of the data in last night’s Steel Market Update newsletter.

Our survey results show buyers and sellers of flat rolled steel – such as hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels in sheet and coil – are ending 2011 on a positive note. Our SMU Steel Buyers Sentiment Index which we reported at +32 on Thursday evening was supported by those who responded to our survey. Our first article in last evening’s newsletter is about the optimistic tone we found woven through our survey results.

In last night’s newsletter are articles on other topics which came from our proprietary survey. They include an article about service center and manufactures inventory levels. We also have an article about service center pricing in the spot markets as reported by both manufacturers as well as the service centers themselves.

Every Sunday evening our Steel Market Update newsletter publishes a chart where we compare various flat rolled steel price Indexes. Steel Market Update indexes hot rolled, cold rolled, galvanized and Galvalume steels and we do a comparison between our indexes and those of the CRU, SteelBenchmarker, Steel Orbis and Platts.

We also follow a number of economic indicators of importance to those involved in the steel industry. This includes iron ore pricing as well as a revue of operating oil rigs in North America.

We encourage those who are enjoying our blog postings to register for a free trial to our Steel Market Update newsletter which is published three times per week. You can do so on our website: www.steelmarketupdate.com or by clicking on the buttons located below this blog post.

We also encourage those interested in the flat rolled industry in North America to become an annual member. We currently are offering a special package for new members – 14 months of our newsletter for the price of 12 months. Contact Sophia at 800-432-3475 (706-216-5440) or by email at info@steelmarketupdate.com for more information and to register. Our special offer expires on January 3, 2012.