Nucor Corporation manufactures and sells steel and steel products. The company's Steel Mills segment produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized sheet steel products; plate steel products; wide-flange beams, beam blanks, and H-piling and sheet piling products; and bar steel products, such as blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing and merchant bars, and special bar quality products. It also engages in the steel trading and rebar distribution businesses. This segment sells its products to steel service centers, fabricators, and manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Its Steel Products segment offers hollow structural section steel tubing products, electrical conduits, steel racking, steel joists and joist girders, steel decks, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel products, cold finished steel products, steel fasteners, metal building systems, insulated metal panels, steel grating and expanded metal products, and wire and wire mesh products primarily for use in nonresidential construction applications. This segment also engages in the piling distribution business. The company's Raw Materials segment produces direct reduced iron (DRI); brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron, and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal, as well as engages in the natural gas drilling operations. This segment sells its ferrous scrap to electric arc furnace steel mills and foundries for manufacturing process; and nonferrous scrap metal to aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills and other processors, and consumers of various nonferrous metals. It serves agriculture, automotive, construction, energy and transmission, oil and gas, heavy equipment, infrastructure, and transportation industries through its in-house sales force; and internal distribution and trading companies. Nucor Corporation was incorporated in 1958 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Nucor Stock Performance
Nucor stock traded up $0.60 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $142.47. The company had a trading volume of 2,654 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,128,102. Nucor has a 52 week low of $88.50 and a 52 week high of $187.90. The firm's 50-day simple moving average is $119.85 and its 200 day simple moving average is $130.86. The firm has a market capitalization of $37.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.35 and a beta of 1.40. The company has a current ratio of 2.62, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37.
Nucor (NYSE:NUE - Get Rating) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, July 21st. The basic materials company reported $9.67 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $8.91 by $0.76. Nucor had a return on equity of 57.78% and a net margin of 21.03%. The company had revenue of $11.79 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $11.59 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $5.04 EPS. Nucor's revenue for the quarter was up 34.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Nucor will post 3.45 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Nucor Announces Dividend
The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, June 30th were issued a $0.50 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, June 29th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.40%. Nucor's dividend payout ratio is currently 6.14%.
Analyst Ratings Changes
NUE has been the topic of several analyst reports. Argus upped their price objective on Nucor from $140.00 to $190.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, April 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on Nucor from $146.00 to $125.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, June 14th. StockNews.com cut Nucor from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group lowered their price target on Nucor from $148.00 to $130.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, May 31st. Finally, Credit Suisse Group increased their price target on Nucor from $142.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Friday, April 22nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $133.18.
Insider Buying and Selling
In other Nucor news, CEO Leon J. Topalian sold 48,768 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, June 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $112.61, for a total value of $5,491,764.48. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 135,809 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,293,451.49. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Nucor news, CEO Leon J. Topalian sold 48,768 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, June 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $112.61, for a total value of $5,491,764.48. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 135,809 shares in the company, valued at approximately $15,293,451.49. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, EVP Kenneth Rex Query sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $141.64, for a total value of $708,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 76,100 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $10,778,804. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 57,175 shares of company stock valued at $6,616,198. 0.46% of the stock is owned by company insiders.
