The net loss of $267 million, or $1.86 a share, compares with net income of $290 million, or $2.50, a year earlier, Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel said today in a statement. Sales dropped 25 percent to $3.35 billion. Competitor Nucor Corp. today reported a fourth-quarter profit and 2009 sales that moved it ahead of U.S. Steel’s revenue.
Chief Executive Officer John Surma in October said the company would report an operating loss in the fourth quarter due to low production rates and costs to maintain idled facilities. The U.S. steel industry ran at an average 51 percent of capacity last year as prices dropped to a five-year low in June. A rebound in steel prices during the third quarter caused by reduced output and inventories stalled in the fourth quarter.
“Steel prices, at least in the near term, could be coming down,” Sal Tharani, a New York-based analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., wrote in a Jan. 22 report. “This could pose a headwind for steel stocks.”
U.S. Steel fell $4.42, or 7.9 percent, to $51.81 at 9:41 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange trading. The shares rose 48 percent last year.
Excluding certain one-time items, the loss was $1.84 a share. U.S. Steel was projected to report a fourth-quarter loss excluding some items of $1.51 a share, the average estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales were projected to fall to $3.07 billion, from $4.5 billion last year.
“We expect to report an overall first quarter 2010 operating loss in line with the fourth quarter 2009 as gradually improving business conditions are not yet fully reflected in our operating results,” Surma said in the statement.
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