Nucor Corporation today announced guidance for its fourth quarter ending December 31, 2019. Nucor expects fourth quarter earnings to be in the range of $0.25 to $0.30 per diluted share. This range is a decrease compared to third quarter of 2019 earnings of $0.90 per diluted share and a decrease relative to fourth quarter of 2018 earnings of $2.07 per diluted share.
In a press release, Nucor said the performance of the steel mills segment in the fourth quarter of 2019 is expected to decrease compared to the third quarter of 2019 as lower steel prices at the end of the third quarter have impacted the company’s fourth quarter results. During the fourth quarter, domestic scrap metal prices have risen markedly and sheet, plate, structural and bar mills have all implemented price increases, the company said.
“We believe this reflects healthy underlying demand for our steel mill products,” Nucor said. “We expect that the performance of our steel mills segment will improve as we head into 2020, reflecting the impact of the price increases and normal seasonality.”
The company added that the profitability of the steel products segment in the fourth quarter of 2019 is expected to decrease slightly as compared to the third quarter of 2019 due to normal year-end seasonality. However, Nucor expects the profitability of the steel products segment in the fourth quarter of 2019 to be “the best fourth quarter in that segment's history and significantly higher than the fourth quarter of 2018.”
Losses of the raw materials segment are expected to increase in the fourth quarter of 2019 as compared to the third quarter of 2019, Nucor said, due to the impact of our Louisiana DRI plant's planned outage which was completed in mid-November, as well as expected further margin compression throughout Nucor’s raw materials businesses.