Time to Bail On, or Buy Up, Steel Stocks?

U.S. Steel and Nucor send mixed signals with their fourth-quarter results; does this mark an end to the recent steel-stock rally?
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NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Steel kingpins Nucor (NUE) - Get Report and U.S. Steel (X) - Get Report stepped forward Tuesday with fourth-quarter results -- following close on the heels of smaller player AK Steel (AKS) - Get Report on Monday -- but the numbers in the financial statements and the words from company executives may have done more to muddy the outlook than clarify it.

Certainly it's an industry in need of some clarity. Earlier this month, a number of steel names

touched new 52-week highs

-- U.S. Steel at $66.45, AK Steel at $26.75, and

Steel Dynamics

(STLD) - Get Report

at $20.67-- amid super-bullish sentiment.

Investors appeared to have been placing bets that called for stronger pricing as global demand for this most basic of modern industrial materials, used in everything from cars to skyscrapers to camping thermoses, rebounded on what looked to be a nascent economic recovery.

Alas. Nucor -- whose CEO has sounded cautious notes throughout the recession --

signaled that the construction industry remained in such straights that "real demand" wouldn't return for some time

.

Meanwhile,

U.S. Steel appeared to all but squelch

the optimism that had gathered around the company of late. A raft of analysts had come out with bullish calls since Christmas, arguing that U.S. Steel was poised to benefit from improved pricing.

But there were positive signs, as well. With carmakers showing signs of life, so too will orders for the steel used in automobiles. U.S. Steel noted as much in its earnings report.

Elsewhere, steel mill production rates continued to edge higher as steelmakers reacted to increased spot prices for steel and to low inventories at service centers.

Some analysts, however, worried that real demand was still too low to make the increased output sustainable.

With all this in mind, we ask readers of

TheStreet

the logical question: Does the recent retrenchment in steel stocks mean its time to bail on the sector or double down or simply hold steady?

Take the poll below to see what

TheStreet's

consensus is -- or even if there

is

a consensus. And if you don't like what you see, feel free to leave a comment, lobbying investors toward your considered opinion.

-- Written by Scott Eden from New York

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>>U.S. Steel Shares: Selloff Deepens

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>>Nucor Posts Profit, but Outlook Murky

Scott Eden has covered business -- both large and small -- for more than a decade. Prior to joining TheStreet.com, he worked as a features reporter for Dealmaker and Trader Monthly magazines. Before that, he wrote for the Chicago Reader, that city's weekly paper. Early in his career, he was a staff reporter at the Dow Jones News Service. His reporting has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Men's Journal, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, and the Believer magazine, among other publications. He's also the author of Touchdown Jesus (Simon & Schuster, 2005), a nonfiction book about Notre Dame football fans and the business and politics of big-time college sports. He has degrees from Notre Dame and Washington University in St. Louis.