Nucor Cuts Guidance, Citing Steel Imports

Steel manufacturer Nucor Corp. said profit in its third quarter would fall below its own expectations, citing unplanned outages as well as the impact of imported steel products, an issue highlighted in recent months by the Trump administration.

Nucor now expects third-quarter earnings per share to be between 75 cents and 80 cents. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected $1.02.

Shares fell 0.6% to $53.63 in morning trading.

In an update for investors Friday, the company said pricing pressures caused by imported steel "has not allowed pricing to keep pace with increasing raw material costs."

Nucor said imports were continuing to hurt the U.S. steel industry, which is pursuing trade cases against the importers.

In a July interview with The Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump said his administration would take its time in making a long-awaited decision on whether to block steel imports, saying "we don't want to do it at this moment."

On Friday, Nucor said it was "pleased with the slow but steady progress" on raising steel-import taxes.

The company also said its Louisiana operations has had unplanned outages for most of the third quarter. The facility stopped production in late July to make repairs to address other equipment issues and is expected to resume in early October.

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 15, 2017 11:56 ET (15:56 GMT)