Nucor Lowers Guidance For Its Second Quarter Earnings; $0.75-$0.80 vs. $0.87 Estimate

Nucor Corporation NUE announced today guidance for its second quarter ending July 2, 2011. Nucor expects second quarter results to be in the range of $0.75 to $0.80 per diluted share. This represents an increase of 160% - 180% over second quarter 2010 earnings of $0.29 per diluted share, and an increase of 50% - 60% over first quarter 2011 earnings of $0.50 per diluted share. Projected second quarter results include an estimated LIFO charge of $31 million ($0.06 per diluted share) compared to charges of $67 million in the second quarter of 2010 ($0.13 per diluted share) and $31 million in the first quarter of 2011 ($0.06 per diluted share). As we expected, our profitability has significantly improved from the first quarter to the second quarter, as price increases for steel mill products caught up with higher raw material costs. We continue to believe that end markets such as automotive, heavy equipment, energy, and general manufacturing have experienced some real demand improvement. These increases in profits were achieved despite the rebalancing by our customers of supply chain inventories, the impact on the manufacturing/auto sector of the devastating Japanese earthquake/tsunami and the lost sales, production and shipments from the weather-related power outages and historic river flooding in North America. The third quarter should not see a continuation of these weather-related issues. Improvement in real demand is most evident in special bar quality, sheet and plate products sold to the manufacturing, industrial and energy sectors. The most challenging markets for our products continue to be those associated with residential and non-residential construction. We do expect continued stability in order rates as raw material prices have been less volatile than in 2010. As is our practice, we will provide qualitative guidance for third quarter 2011 earnings in our second quarter 2011 earnings release.