IN THE PERIOD SINCE World War II, the steel industry has undergone a major reappraisal by discerning investors. As earlier articles in The Analysts Journal and elsewhere have pointed out: (1) earnings have advanced and exhibited less of the cyclical fluctuations characteristic of the prewar period; (2) dividends have moved upward and regular dividend rates established and maintained even in periods of adversity; and (3) gradual recognition of these facts has resulted in increasing the level of price-earnings ratios, so that steel equities have been more profitable as capital gains vehicles than many of the glamorous growth stocks. This improvement in steel earnings and dividends has not been brought about by any spectacular growth in demand for steel products. It is the result, rather, of internal cost control and efficiencies in operations of the steel companies and, more importantly, the establishment of a pricing structure in steel products that has more than compensated for increased costs and has not been subject to the same erratic fluctuations as steel demand. The purpose of this article is to reappraise the industry in order to see if the factors that have made the industry so profitable an investment in the past decade will continue to operate in the future. This requires an examination of the organization and market structure of the industry in its present world-wide context.