Nucor offers Q2 earnings guidance

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Nucor Corp. has announced earnings guidance for its second quarter ending June 29. Nucor says it expects second-quarter earnings to be in the range of $1.20 to $1.25 per diluted share compared with $1.63 in the first quarter of 2019 and $2.13 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2018.

“The performance of the steel mills segment in the second quarter of 2019 is expected to decrease compared to the first quarter of 2019 as service center destocking is impacting order rates,” the company says in a news release. “Increased domestic supply and a declining scrap price environment have led to aggressive inventory management by our customers. We still see stability in most of the end-use markets that we serve, with some softening in automotive.”

The performance of the raw materials segment was expected to decrease in the second quarter of 2019 compared with the first quarter because of “further margin compression” arising from a planned 25-day outage in June at its direct-reduced iron (DRI) facility in Trinidad, the company says.

Most end markets remain “strong or stable,” Nucor says.

“The profitability of the steel products segment in the second quarter of 2019 is expected to improve as compared to the first quarter of 2019, as typical seasonal patterns and improved weather conditions have benefited nonresidential construction markets,” the company says.

Nucor and its affiliates make steel and steel products, with operating facilities primarily in the United States and Canada. Its David J. Joseph Co. affiliate processes and brokers ferrous and nonferrous scrap, pig iron, hot-briquetted iron and direct-reduced iron. Nucor’s subsidiary, Skyline Steel, services the U.S., Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America and Colombia markets.