Steel Outlook

The steel market has proved quiet with prices steady. Production has decreased steadily since Nov. 1, and is now between 5 and 10% under the tonnage rate as of that date. Buyers are inclined to reduce their stocks before the year-end inventories, particularly since their current orders can be promptly and readily filled.

Recently, steel men showed some elation, or at least were reported to have done so, when the flurry of buying was taking place. This is now practically over, and in retrospect appears a trifle manipulative. It has contributed somewhat to firmer prices for pig without losing any permanent impression or effect upon the markets for iron or steel.

Much of the optimism exhibited by steel leaders was, of course, directed at after-dinner audiences and is as much a staple product with them as merchant bars or structural shapes; some of it was based upon ethical rather than economic considerations. Now the talk is of "railroad buying in 1924," but how extensive this may actually be it is yet early to determine. Apart from other considerations, the anti-railroad group in Congress may have considerable to do with that question.