Volume Spike Investor » X

The Alcoa Indicator: Majors Rise in After-Hours (BA, CAT, CENX, F, GE, TIE, X)

247admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 21:57:22 +0000

Alcoa, Inc. is a stock that many investors and traders try to use as a proxy for earnings season for other major companies. Of the companies which are large end-users of the metal (hence Alcoa’s comments about rising demand), we are watching Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), Century Aluminum Co. (NASDAQ: CENX), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE), Titanium Metals Corporation (NYSE: TIE), and United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X). Of course not all of these are directly tied to Alcoa as far as the company itself, but the tie should be fairly evident.

The issue that always comes up for debate is that Alcoa is often a coincidental indicator rather than a leading indicator stock. It is rare that things would be great or improving for Alcoa without the rest of the biggest companies following suit, but the rest of the universe can still be strong or holding up even if Alcoa is not scoring large gains.

Here are the after-hours reactions from the key DJIA components which would be loosely tied:

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) up 0.7% at $64.34
Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) up 0.5% at $64.61
Century Aluminum Co. (NASDAQ: CENX) up 3.75% at $9.95
Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) up 1% at $11.21
General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) up 1%at $15.08
Titanium Metals Corporation (NYSE: TIE) up 1.7% at $19.44
United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X) up 1.35% at $42.07

JON C. OGG

US Steel Loves Goldman Conviction Buy (X, FCX)

247admin — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:15:39 +0000

US Steel Corp. (NYSE: X) is trading up this morning after it was added to Goldman Sachs’ coveted Conviction Buy List to replace Freeport McMoran (NYSE: FCX). At 8:10 AM EST this has shares up almost 4% at $44.72 in the very early indications this morning on almost 75,000 shares. The volume will increase as the special trading gets closer to the 9:30 bell, but the question will be how much more it can run as futures have not found solid footing yet. The average volume is 11.7 million shares and the 52-week trading range is $16.66 to $51.65.

JON C. OGG

Metals Spike After-Hours oN ALCOA (AA, CENX, STLD, TIE, AKS, X, CLF, MT)

247admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:31:10 +0000

Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) has just posted a surprise profit after it was expected to lose money in the quarter. Here are the full details, but we took a 4:20 PM EST snapshot and many metals companies are running up that are not just in the aluminum space:

Century Aluminum Company (NASDAQ: CENX) $9.65 close; $10.41 A-H; +7.88% on 139,411 shares

Steel Dynamics, Inc. (NASDAQ: STLD) $15.23 close; $15.45 A-H; +1.44% on 22,381 shares

Titanium Metals Corporation (NYSE: TIE) $9.80 close; $10.10 A-H; +3.06% on 8,333 shares

AK Steel Holding Corporation (NYSE: AKS) $18.88 close, $19.35 A-H, +2.49% on 42,645 shares

United States Steel Corporation (NYSE: X) $42.59 close; $43.60 A-H; +2.37% on 52,037 shares

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF) $33.21 Close; $33.99 A-H; +2.35% on 14,691 shares

ArcelorMittal (NYSE: MT) $36.37 close; $37.09 A-H; +1.98% on 4,390 shares

JON C. OGG
OCTOBER 7, 2009

PREMARKET ALERT: United States Steel (X)

247admin — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:39:00 +0000

United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X) sharse are down 3 percent to $40.01 and among the most active premarket stocks with more than 200,00 shares traded as of 8:30 a.m. Eastern. The company beat EPS expectations, but posted revenue that fell 68.5 percent from year-ago levels to $2.13 billion, short of $2.39 billion analyst expectations. The company said that its outlook for overall steel demand remains uncertain and the timing and magnitude of sustained economic recovery remain difficult to forecast. — Mike Tarsala

Steel stocks lag on commodities weakness, construction market worries (SCHN, X, CMC, RS, NUE, AKS)

247admin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:09:59 +0000

Steel stocks are among the laggards Tuesday after disappointing results from Schnitzer Steel Industries Inc. (Nasdaq: SCHN) and a lackluster consumer confidence report that helped spur lower commodity prices.

Schnitzer is weighing most heavily on the group, down more than 10 percent as of noon Tuesday, on more than twice its normal volume. The company missed earnings expectations by 21 cents a share, and revenue fell 58 percent from the same period a year earlier. The company cited weak demand in both the non-residential and infrastructure construction markets in its steel manufacturing business. The company expects the construction market weakness to continue through the rest of the year.

Among other steel names, United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X), Commercial Metals Co. (NYSE: CMC) and Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. (NYSE: RS) all are down more than 3 percent on moderate volume. Nucor Corp. (NYSE: NUE) shares are down more than 2 percent. AK Steel Holding Corp. (NYSE: AKS) is down more than 1 percent. — Mike Tarsala

Options Volume Alert: The Unusual Case of U.S. Steel (X)

247admin — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:18:08 +0000

U.S. Steel (NYSE: X) had some unusual options trading on Friday, and this was no close-out trade. We saw in the PUT OPTIONS which expire on Friday, October 16, 2009 a highly unusual trading pattern in the OCT-2009 $30.00 Strike Puts as options contract trading volume of 20,465 contracts were made. The prior open interest was only 1,396 contracts. On a fully leveraged basis this represents just over 2 million shares. This means that someone is betting for a price of under $30.00 or is buying downside protection for a stop-loss trade at $30.00, and it means that the other side of the trade via the market-maker believes the stock won’t go substantially under $30.00. Technically, U.S. Steel would have to go under $27.00 based on the premiums paid that were north of $3.00. There were no off-set trades apparent for the same month, and no options activity in the front months show that this was a roll-out trade. With a trading range of roughly $16 to $195 over the last year-plus, this is aggressive but may be of less surprise than one might think.

We routinely go back over daily and weekly options to see what we missed out there, and this one stood out of the crowd the largest for our end of week reviews.

-Jon Ogg