By Steve Goldstein
LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Goldman Sachs lifted its rating on U.S. steel makers to attractive from neutral, citing the sector's underperformance as welll as the emergence of "incrementally positive data points. Steel and scrap prices in the U.S. have bottomed in our view, Chinese prices are rising, inventories remain low, a weak dollar has brought the U.S. close to being a net exporter, and we expect better industrial and auto demand in 2010," the broker said. It added U.S. Steel (X 43.06, -0.61, -1.40%) to its conviction buy list and said its favorite stocks are Steel Dynamics (STLD 16.64, -0.41, -2.40%) , AK Steel (AKS 19.56, -0.42, -2.10%) and Nucor (NUE 41.81, -1.27, -2.95%) , while it removed Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold (FCX 83.92, -0.22, -0.26%) from its conviction buy list.
