Steel may be a cyclical product, but it is not one that is going to go out of style, and with all the infrastructure development already planned and funded worldwide plus continued consolidation in the industry, it seems like a good bet. You can see some of my often repeated criteria; low P/S, low, P/B, pays a dividend (wish it was higher), not much debt, good cash-flow, and ROE higher than the P/E. The following metrics are from AOL Money & Finance which you should always verify before taking any action since I have found some inconsistencies in the data from time to time.

• Price-to-earnings P/E: 8.61 (TTM)
• Price-to-sales P/S: 1.06 (LFY)
• Price-to-book P/B: 3.25 (LFY)
• Price-to-cash flow P/CF: 594 (TTM)
• Return-on-equity ROE: 37.59 (TTM)
• Long Term Debt-to-Equity 46.81 (LFY)
• Dividend Yield 1.60%

A year ago the stock had almost reached $70 per share and has since come down.

Steel Dynamics is still below its 200 day moving average if that matters to some of you. As I write this story it is up almost $3 at $44.10 in afternoon trading. The improved monthly statistics on housing as well as the Merrill Lynch upgrade probably had something to do with this jump.

Those of you who are new to BloggingStocks can check out my other stories and read Chasing Value or Serious Money to find more potential opportunities and verify my track record as well.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. Check out his other posts for BloggingStocks here.