- AK Steel (NYSE:AKS) +9.1% premarket after easily beating Q4 earnings expectations, with revenues matching estimates even while falling 8% Y/Y.
- Q4 net sales totaled $1.42B on shipments exceeding 1.4M tons, below year-ago Q4 sales of $1.54B on shipments of 1.65M tons, which AKS says was driven largely by its strategic decision to reduce commodity steel sales to the distributor and converters market.
- Also, Q4 shipments to the automotive industry were slightly lower than a year ago, primarily due to inventory adjustments by several major automakers and changes to or the phasing out of certain automotive platforms.
- However, selling prices per ton improved 7.4% to $998/ton vs. $929/ton in the year-ago quarter, and total Q4 operating costs fell 9.3% Y/Y to $1.43B.
- U.S. Steel (NYSE:X) +2.6% premarket.