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Nucor Beats, Says Outlook Improving

作者：1 發(fā)布時(shí)間：2010-04-23 文字大?。?span id="da">【大】【中】【小】
 By Scott Eden 04/22/10 - 01:48 PM EDT
(Nucor earnings story updated to provide further detail from the company's press release, and to account for stock price movement.)
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (TheStreet) -- Nucor(NUE), the nation's biggest steelmaker by volume, exceeded profit targets for the first quarter and predicted accelerating results going into the second half of the year.

In its earnings release, issued before the opening bell Thursday, Nucor said it expects the "second quarter to be an improvement over our first quarter results."

Still, the company, whose key products include rebar and I-beams, continues to suffer from a depressed housing market and an almost total lack of construction projects. "The most challenging markets for our products continue to be those associated with residential and non-residential construction, which continue to show little, if any, strength," Nucor said.

Nucor reported a profit of $31 million, or 10 cents a share, on revenue of $3.65 billion.

By comparison, analysts were calling for a bottom line of 6 cents a share and a top line of $3.6 billion.

A year ago, in the throes of the downturn, Nucor lost $190 million on revenue of $2.65 billion.

The company has struggled with pig-iron inventories and the high cost of raw materials -- in Nucor's case, scrap metal. The electric arc furnace operator uses recycled material as its primary feedstock.

In March, the company told Wall Street to ratchet back its target for the quarter, calling for a bottom line anywhere between a loss of five cents and a profit of five cents. But Nucor also said that orders from customers were trending higher, up more than 20% from a year ago. 

The company, in turn, has boosted production. Operating rates at its mills around the country jumped to 73% of their total capacity in the first quarter, Nucor said, a far busier level than the doldrums of the year-ago period, when the steelmaker was using only 45% of its capacity. Operating rates also improved sequentially from the fourth quarter's 58%.

Nucor shares, which have traded choppily since the start of the year, turned into the green Thursday afternoon after having lost ground earlier in the session. In recent trades, the stock was changing hands at $45.25, up 14 cents, or 0.3%, from the previous close.

The fairly positive news from Nucor contrasted withReliance Steel(RS), which provided a disappointing outlook for its second quarter and indicated that steel prices might not hold steady in the second half of the year, as steelmakers hike operating rates and supply hits the market.

Shares of Reliance, which operates metals distribution and service centers, were falling sharply Thursday, down 6%.

So far during this first-quarter reporting season,steelmakers have turned in mixed results. On Tuesday,AK Steel(AKS) said rising iron ore costs could squeeze its profits, but AK is far more exposed to the global cost of that crucial steel ingredient than other companies in the industry.

Steel Dynamics(STLD), meanwhile, which forges steel out of recycled scrap like Nucor, offered a positive but somewhat vague outlook for the rest of the year when it released quarterly results on Monday.

U.S. Steel(X), which has no exposure to iron ore costs, will release results April 27.

-- Written by Scott Eden in New York

Sourced from www..thestreet.com