prospect for the industry. Steel producers can suffer few ills that cannot be cured or quickly alleviated by sufficient tonnage to maintain a high operating rate for a year or more. In a more extended period of substantial volume, the prosperity of the industry becomes almost embarrassing. However, the uncertainties usually attending the continuance of high operations and consequent large profits, coupled with normally low dividend payments, tend to hold down steel stock prices to low multiples of earnings when business is good. The common stocks are not considered good investment media, and, for speculative purposes, they usually cease to be attractive by the time improved earning power has begun to justify higher prices for them. This normally occurs late in the business cycle, and steel stocks tend to reach their best prices late in a bull market. But, for those who buy and sell at the right times, the rewards are great. So far as individual steel issues are concerned, their value is importantly influenced by their break-even points that is, the rate of production in percentage of steel furnace capacity at which there will be no profit and no loss. This figure fluctuates with the rise and fall of wage rates, finished steel prices, the cost of raw materials, and changes in the product mix. But the same relationship among the various producers usually is maintained. Only occasionally is a company able to lower permanently its break-even point in relation to the rest of the industry, and, if one does, its improved position gradually is reflected in the prices at which its securities are valued.