A whopping 92.9 percent of steel buyers surveyed last month by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) have inventories that will cover less than two months' supply at current shipping rates.

Of that figure, 42.9 percent have less than one month's worth of steel on hand, the highest rate since July's 45.7 percent.

Nonetheless, surveyed buyers are not eager to stock up. A full 50 percent of them project incoming orders and backlogs to trend down over the next few months, and a like amount said they would maintain their inventories at the current, historically low level.

Klein Steel Service Inc., Rochester, N.Y., "aggressively brought inventory down" through most of 2009, chief executive officer Joe Klein said Tuesday. The company recently increased its inventories, but only because "we cannot afford stock-outs."

October was a pretty decent month for Klein Steel, he said, and he isn't forecasting a collapse in major end-use markets, but he's using a...