Steel Dynamics Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

Steel Dynamics (NAS: STLD) hasn't been able to establish an earnings trend, bouncing between beating and falling short of estimates during the past fiscal year. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Monday, Oct. 17. Steel Dynamics, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures steel products and recycles metals.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back Steel Dynamics, with eight of 12 rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like Steel Dynamics better than competitor United States Steel overall. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.

  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $1.97 billion in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 24.7% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.20 per share. Estimates range from $0.15 to $0.22.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly backing the stock with 97.5% giving it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 96.3% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools are gung-ho about Steel Dynamics and haven't been shy with their opinions lately, logging 275 posts in the past 30 days. Despite the majority sentiment in favor of Steel Dynamics, the stock has a middling CAPS rating of three out of five stars.

Management:
Steel Dynamics' profit has risen year over year by an average of 5% over the past five quarters.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows gross, operating, and net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q2

Q1

Q4

Q3

Gross Margin

13.3%

14.7%

8.7%

8.8%

Operating Margin

9.1%

10.2%

3.1%

4.4%

Net Margin

4.7%

5.3%

0.5%

1.2%

For all of our Steel Dynamics-specific analysis, including earnings and beyond, add Steel Dynamics to My Watchlist.

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At the time thisarticle was published

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