Citi said that it believed the US steel market was in the early stages of an apparent demand recovery.

In an investment note, Citi said that AK Steel's Butler facility was rolling 65,000 tons per month as compared with recent levels of 60,000 tons, while US Steel was in the process of restarting one of two blast furnaces in Granite City.

It said that "We believe more restarts are likely in the third quarter as apparent demand improves."

It added that the market underappreciated IBM's growth and profitability potential as most sell side and buy side analysts continue to over-emphasize the company's legacy hardware operations.