When your company is barely making progress – or worse yet falling behind the already scaled down projections – it has to have an affect on those buying and selling steel. Our most recent SMU Buyers Sentiment was measured at -23.0% during this week’s market survey. The latest reading is an improvement of 7.0% points from two weeks ago when Sentiment was measured at -30 and this week reading is the second highest reading we have reported since we began measuring Sentiment in November 2008.

The lowest reading we have recored was the week of March 9, 2009 - just over one year ago at -85. So, to put our latest reading into perspective the -30 is an improvement of 55 points or almost three times better than this time last year. The North American economy has not yet garnered enough steam to push our Sentiment Index into positive territory but we believe this will happen by the end of this year.

Our Future Sentiment reading continues to be in positive or optimistic territory with a reading of +11.2%.

About the SMU Buyers Sentiment Meter Reading (meter is located on the Home Page of our website):

Since November 2008 Steel Market Update has been measuring what we call “Buyers Sentiment”. Essentially, we are measuring responses from steel buyers; sales people and a small number of trading companies, toll processors and steel mills, regarding their attitudes about their company’s existing business conditions. We also ask questions as to their attitudes regarding projected future business conditions – which we call Future Buyers Sentiment.

Each is measured and plotted on a meter (shown on the Home Page) with “0” being the mean or average – which is the point where attitudes are in the “Fair” range. If Buyers Sentiment is optimistic the range will be measured on the plus side with +100% being the most positive position possible. If Sentiment is negative the measurement will be on the negative side with -100% being the most pessimistic position possible.