Steel imports climbed to $1.4B in January.  This was a 7.2% improvement month over month, but down 52% year over year – a clear sign that while things are improving we remain a long long way from recovery.  As the chart below shows, the recovery continues to display similar trends from several other parts of the real economy including revenue growth, job growth, rail trends and small business improvement.

The Census Bureau has details from the report:

“The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that preliminary January steel imports were $1.4 billion (1.5 million metric tons) compared to the preliminary December totals of $1.3 billion (1.3 million metric tons).

The January change in steel imports based on metric tonnage reflected increases primarily in blooms, bullets, and slabs; and oil country goods. Monthly increases occurred primarily with Canada and Russia. A decrease occurred primarily with Brazil.”

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

The content on this site is provided as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. All site content shall not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security or financial product, or to participate in any particular trading or investment strategy. The ideas expressed on this site are solely the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the opinions of firms affiliated with the author(s). The author(s) may or may not have a position in any security referenced herein and may or may not seek to do business with one another or companies mentioned via this website. Any action that you take as a result of information or analysis on this site is ultimately your responsibility. Consult your investment adviser before making any investment decisions.

A brief note on comments – The increase in users in recent months has resulted in an increase in unproductive comments. Any user who engages in the use of racial epithets or uses the comment section as a place to insult other users will be banned from the site. The comment section is welcome to all readers who are interested in asking pertinent questions and/or engaging in thoughtful, intelligent, and productive debate. In short, just be nice. Thanks.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

More on this topic (What's this?)

A Steel Stock With A High Dividend Yield (The DIV-Net, 8/17/10)

The Pros and Cons of Dealing With Steel (Investment U, 2/12/10)

Metals in decision-facing mode include steel - and yes, gold (CHARTLINES (tm), 3/3/10)

“An Incredible Opportunity …. My newest pick is a scrap metal recycler on the verge of breaki... (Stock Gumshoe, 8/18/10)

Read more on Imports, Steel at Wikinvest