Earlier this week SMU began a new “group” on LinkedIn. As of Thursday morning we had 238 people registered for our group – 99% active steel people. The group name is: Steel Market Update if you are a LinkedIn member and would like to join you can search for our group by name. We started the group because many of the other groups to which we belong allow job postings, misc. advertising and offers to buy and sell steel (usually from Asia or the Middle East) to permeate the discussions. We are not allowing these kinds of postings in our group.

You are also welcome to link directly with me whom you can do by sending me an invite through your LinkedIn account: John@SteelMarketUpdate.com

SMU also has a Twitter account and facebook page for those who wish to follow us through those social mediums. I believe you can click on Twitter and facebook logos on our home page.

We will continue to expand our social media network in the coming months and find ways to use the networks to improve our visibility and content. We appreciate any feedback you may wish to share with us.

It has been a hectic day for news. We posted a number of items on our website and we recommend you take a look at our Blog and Featured News areas from time to time to see if we are posting information which is not carried in our newsletter. An example today is we reported on Gerdau earnings in our Blog but not in a newsletter. Just too much information out in one day.

On Sunday our newsletter will contain information gleaned from our SMU steel market survey. For those who completed the survey – you will receive a link to our Power Point presentation tomorrow afternoon. Thank you again for helping us understand the market better.

FYI – SMU will attend the SBB North American Steel Conference in Chicago during the month of March. On April 11th we will be back in Chicago for our Hedging Price Risk workshop. Click on the link here or on the banner at the beginning of this newsletter for more information. Later in April (24-25th) we will be conducting our Steel 101 training class. We are working on putting up “new and revised” program along with our registration. We have expanded the program and we are working with Severstal Dearborn where we will tour their Dearborn automotive quality steel mill. In June we will attend Steel Success Strategies (SSS) in New York City to see what Mr. Marcus has to say for himself this year. While in New York City we will participate in the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Research dinner. We will hold another Hedging workshop in July in conjunction with the CME Group and we hope to hold another Steel 101 training class in association with another mill later in the summer. SMU is also in the planning stages for our SMU Flat Rolled Steel Summit Conference which will be held this Fall.

Hopefully, we will see many of you at a number of these events (preferably ours).

Tell your friends, suppliers and customers about Steel Market Update. Now is a good time to sign up for an annual membership – before our new website comes online later this year. You can find out more information about becoming an annual member on our website: www.SteelMarketUpdate.com or by contacting our office: info@SteelMarketUpdate.com or 800-432-3475.