People watch stocks for different reasons -- they're waiting for a dip in price, watching for a specific catalyst, gathering all the news and information that might affect stocks they already own, or considering a sell. Regardless of their motivation, we can better understand market sentiment by seeing who's watching what. With the Fool's free My Watchlist service, we have tens of thousands of people telling us the businesses that have, for whatever reason, piqued their interest.

With this data we have come up with a new metric, watch interest, to inform investors what stocks their peers keep tabs on in each industry. In the case of the aluminum and steel industry, watch interest is the percentage of people keeping an eye on aluminum and steel stocks in general who are specifically watching each company. By looking at what stocks people are most interested in an industry, you can get ahead of the curve by finding hot stocks that you might have otherwise overlooked. The industry has been recovering along with the world economy and has begun posting big income numbers.

The most-watched aluminum and steel stock is ...
Looking at the aggregate data, we see that Alcoa (NYSE: AA) is above the rest in terms of watch interest and for good reason. As CAPS player buffalonate wrote in June:

I think aluminum demand will increase substantially in the future because the automobile industry is focusing on lightweighting to get better gas mileage. Doing so will require the use of much more aluminum.

Here are the rest of the top 15 most-watched companies in the industry with their watch interest along with the stocks' CAPS rating to show the sentiment of our investing community.

 

Company

Market Cap (millions)

CAPS Rating (out of 5)

Watch Interest

1

Alcoa

$16,142

****

29.8%

2

Nucor (NYSE: NUE)

$12,301

****

15.0%

3

United States Steel (NYSE: X)

$6,061

***

11.2%

4

Titanium Metals (NYSE: TIE)

$3,295

*****

10.1%

5

AK Steel (NYSE: AKS)

$1,680

***

4.5%

6

ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT)

$48,068

*****

3.9%

7

General Steel (NYSE: GSI)

$87

****

3.7%

8

Gerdau (NYSE: GGB)

$13,842

****

2.1%

9

POSCO (NYSE: PKX)

$34,006

*****

2.1%

10

Globe Specialty Metals (Nasdaq: GSM)

$1,819

*****

2.1%

11

Steel Dynamics (Nasdaq: STLD)

$3,370

***

2.1%

12

Allegheny Technologies (NYSE: ATI)

$6,842

****

2.0%

13

Century Aluminum (Nasdaq: CENX)

$1,289

***

1.7%

14

Sutor Technology (Nasdaq: SUTR)

$47

****

1.4%

15

Mechel (NYSE: MTL)

$10,099

****

1.3%

Source: Motley Fool, Motley Fool CAPS.

Whether you're keeping an eye on the industry stalwarts like Alcoa or are watching an up-and-comer like Sutor Technology, it pays to wa tch. We can help you keep tabs on your companies with My Watchlist, our free, personalized stock tracking service. Click here to start now.