Nucor releases first quarter guidance

Nucor Corporation released guidance for its first quarter ending April 4, 2009. Nucor expects first quarter results to be in the range of a loss of $0.55 to $0.65 per diluted share. By comparison, Nucor earned $0.34 per share in the fourth quarter of 2008 and earned $1.41 per share in the first quarter of 2008.

Nucor had not previously issued numerical guidance for the first quarter. The qualitative guidance for the first quarter, given in late January, was for marginally better earnings than the fourth quarter of 2008. The expectation for marginally better earnings assumed improvement in first quarter order entry over that of November and December, tied to the end of customer inventory destocking such that orders would move closer to real demand. In addition, no further erosion in pricing was forecast.

Revised guidance for a first quarter loss reflects continued deterioration in economic and market conditions. Customer demand has continued to weaken, with resulting downward pressure on orders, production rates and steel pricing in all product lines. Nucor’s overall steel mill utilization rate is expected to decline to approximately 43% in the first quarter from the fourth quarter of 2008 level of 48%. The dramatically lower production has further slowed the rate at which Nucor’s sheet mills are consuming higher cost iron units, in particular pig iron inventories, which were purchased prior to the collapse in both the economy and scrap/pig iron pricing in last year’s fourth quarter.