Nucor (NUE) AI Stock Analysis

• Market Cap: $36.12B
• Dividend Yield: 1.34%
• Average Volume (3M): 1.49M
• Price to Earnings (P/E): 21.6
• Beta (1Y): 1.17
• Revenue Growth: 1.66%
• EPS Growth: -31.25%
• Country: US
• Employees: 32,700
• Sector: Basic Materials
• Sector Strength: 58
• Industry: Steel
• EPS (TTM): 1.73
• Shares Outstanding: 227,774,610
• 10 Day Avg. Volume: 1,255,905
• 30 Day Avg. Volume: 1,489,138
• PEG Ratio: -1.94
• Price to Book (P/B): 1.80
• Price to Sales (P/S): 1.16
• P/FCF Ratio: -200.16
• Enterprise Value/Market Cap: 1.14
• Enterprise Value/Revenue: 1.27
• Enterprise Value/Gross Profit: 10.61
• Enterprise Value/Ebitda: 9.81
• 1Y Price Target: $191.17
• Price Target Upside: 20.55% Upside
• Rating Consensus: Moderate Buy
• Number of Analyst Covering: 7
• EPS Forecast (FY): 12.24
• Revenue Forecast (FY): $35.83B

• Rating: 65 Neutral
• Price Target: $170.00 ▲(7.20% Upside)
• Action: Reiterated Date: 02/21/26
• Date: Action: Reiterated 02/21/26

The score is driven primarily by cooled profitability and weaker recent cash generation (including negative 2025 free cash flow), partially offset by a comparatively strong balance sheet. The latest earnings call adds meaningful support via improving 2026 guidance, strong backlogs, and expected project-driven EBITDA/FCF uplift, while technicals are mixed and valuation looks somewhat rich for a cyclical steel profile.

Positive Factors

Balance-sheet strength

Nucor’s conservative capital structure, ample liquidity and investment-grade credit provide durable financial flexibility through steel cycles. Cash and an undrawn revolver support operations, project funding and shareholder returns during downturns, reducing refinancing and solvency risk over the next 2–6 months.

Robust backlog and domestic demand

Material backlog growth and stronger domestic demand (supported by lower imports) underpin higher ship volumes and utilization. Sustained backlog-driven shipments provide a structural cushion for pricing and margins as projects convert to revenue, improving near-term earnings durability and mill throughput.

Project-driven EBITDA uplift & capex discipline

Completed growth projects moving into production should deliver structural EBITDA upside while lower 2026 capex eases cash demands. This combination improves free cash flow potential and demonstrates capital allocation discipline, supporting reinvestment and returns as projects reach positive economics.

Negative Factors

Weak cash generation

Negative FCF in 2025 reflects heavy growth investment and reduced cash conversion, narrowing the cash cushion. If project ramp-ups or demand recovery slip, the company could face constrained internal funding for maintenance capex, dividends or buybacks, pressuring strategic flexibility.

Cooled profitability and volatile margins

Margins have materially compressed from peak-cycle levels, reducing earnings resilience to lower volumes or cost pressure. Persistent margin volatility lowers steady-state free cash flow and makes longer-term planning and dividend cover more sensitive to commodity and input-cost swings.

Execution and ramp-up risk on large projects

Large greenfield and complex projects carry multi-period execution risk and elevated start-up costs. Delays or underperformance would defer expected EBITDA and cash benefits, potentially extending higher capex and negative cash flow into 2027 and stressing near-term returns on growth investments.

Nucor Business Overview & Revenue Model

Company Description

Nucor Corporation manufactures and sells steel and steel products. The company's Steel Mills segment produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized sheet steel products; plate steel products; wide-flange beams, beam blanks, and H-piling and sheet piling products; and bar steel products, such as blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing and merchant bars, and special bar quality products. It also engages in the steel trading and rebar distribution businesses. This segment sells its products to steel service centers, fabricators, and manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Its Steel Products segment offers hollow structural section steel tubing products, electrical conduits, steel racking, steel joists and joist girders, steel decks, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel products, cold finished steel products, steel fasteners, metal building systems, insulated metal panels, steel grating and expanded metal products, and wire and wire mesh products primarily for use in nonresidential construction applications. This segment also engages in the piling distribution business. The company's Raw Materials segment produces direct reduced iron (DRI); brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron, and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; and processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal, as well as engages in the natural gas drilling operations. This segment sells its ferrous scrap to electric arc furnace steel mills and foundries for manufacturing process; and nonferrous scrap metal to aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills and other processors, and consumers of various nonferrous metals. It serves agriculture, automotive, construction, energy and transmission, oil and gas, heavy equipment, infrastructure, and transportation industries through its in-house sales force; and internal distribution and trading companies. Nucor Corporation was incorporated in 1958 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

How the Company Makes Money

Nucor makes money mainly by producing and selling steel and steel products to customers across construction, manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, and other industrial end markets. Its core revenue streams are: (1) Steel mills: sales of commodity and value-added steel products (e.g., sheet, plate, bar, and structural products). Revenue in this segment is driven primarily by shipment volumes and realized selling prices, which fluctuate with steel supply/demand, raw material costs, and overall economic activity. (2) Steel products: sales of downstream products such as steel joists and decks and other fabricated/processed steel products, where Nucor captures additional margin by converting steel into more engineered, project-oriented products and providing related processing capabilities. (3) Raw materials: sales of scrap metal and other metallics, and other inputs used in steelmaking; this segment both supplies Nucor’s internal steelmaking needs and generates external sales, with earnings influenced by scrap collection/processing volumes and market prices for recycled metals and related inputs. Across these segments, profitability is affected by the spread between selling prices for steel/steel products and input costs (scrap, metallics, energy, transportation), operating utilization at its mills, and mix of higher-value products versus more commodity grades. Material partnerships or specific customer contracts contributing to earnings are not available in the provided context; if needed, consult Nucor’s latest annual report for disclosed major customer concentrations, long-term supply arrangements, or joint ventures.

Nucor Financial Statement Overview

Summary

Results reflect a cyclical downshift: margins and earnings power are well below 2021–2022 peaks and cash generation weakened, with negative free cash flow in 2025. Offsetting this, leverage is moderate (debt-to-equity in the low-to-mid 0.30s) and equity growth supports balance-sheet resilience for a cyclical steel environment.

Income Statement

Profitability has clearly cooled from the 2021–2022 peak: gross margin fell from ~30% (2021–2022) to ~23% (2023) and ~13% (2024), with net margin dropping from ~18–19% to ~6.6% in 2024. Revenue has been volatile (declines in 2023 and 2024, followed by a modest rebound in 2025), reflecting the cyclical steel environment. The positive is that earnings remain solidly positive and 2025 shows slight top-line improvement, but overall margins and earnings power are well below peak-cycle levels.

Balance Sheet

Leverage looks manageable and fairly stable: debt-to-equity has generally improved versus 2020 (~0.50) and sits around the low-to-mid 0.30s in 2023–2024. Equity has grown materially since 2020, supporting balance sheet resilience through the cycle. Returns on equity were exceptionally strong in 2021–2022, but have stepped down meaningfully by 2024 as profitability normalized—still, the capital structure appears conservatively positioned for the industry.

Cash Flow

Cash generation has weakened from the very strong 2021–2023 period: operating cash flow fell sharply from ~10.1B (2022) and ~7.1B (2023) to ~4.0B (2024) and ~3.2B (2025). Free cash flow turned negative in 2025 (-0.2B) after being positive in prior years, and free cash flow relative to net income in 2024 was modest (~20%), pointing to lower cash conversion in the latest annual period. Strength remains in the company’s historical ability to generate substantial cash in upcycles, but the most recent trend signals tighter cushion.

Breakdown	Dec 2025	Dec 2024	Dec 2023	Dec 2022	Dec 2021
Income Statement
Total Revenue	32.49B	30.73B	34.71B	41.51B	36.48B
Gross Profit	3.88B	4.10B	7.82B	12.50B	11.03B
EBITDA	4.11B	4.49B	7.69B	11.57B	10.23B
Net Income	1.74B	2.03B	4.52B	7.61B	6.83B
Balance Sheet
Total Assets	35.10B	33.94B	35.34B	32.48B	25.82B
Cash, Cash Equivalents and Short-Term Investments	2.70B	4.14B	7.13B	4.86B	2.62B
Total Debt	7.12B	6.95B	6.84B	6.69B	5.68B
Total Liabilities	12.98B	12.52B	13.22B	12.91B	11.22B
Stockholders Equity	20.94B	20.29B	20.94B	18.41B	14.02B
Cash Flow
Free Cash Flow	-188.00M	806.00M	4.90B	8.12B	4.61B
Operating Cash Flow	3.23B	3.98B	7.11B	10.07B	6.23B
Investing Cash Flow	-3.23B	-3.73B	-2.50B	-5.70B	-2.87B
Financing Cash Flow	-1.31B	-3.06B	-2.59B	-2.51B	-3.60B

Nucor Technical Analysis

• Technical Analysis Sentiment: Negative
• Last Price: 158.58
• 50DMA: Negative
• 100DMA: Negative
• 200DMA: Positive
• MACD: Positive
• RSI: Positive
• STOCH: Positive

Evaluating momentum and price trends is crucial in stock analysis to make informed investment decisions. For NUE, the sentiment is Negative. The current price of 158.58 is below the 20-day moving average (MA) of 170.21, below the 50-day MA of 176.16, and above the 200-day MA of 151.69, indicating a neutral trend. The MACD of -4.90 indicates Positive momentum. The RSI at 28.46 is Positive, neither overbought nor oversold. The STOCH value of 19.97 is Positive, not indicating any strong overbought or oversold conditions. Overall, these indicators collectively point to a Negative sentiment for NUE.

Nucor Peers Comparison

Name	Overall Rating	Market Cap	P/E Ratio	ROE	Dividend Yield	Revenue Growth	EPS Growth
RS	70 Outperform	$15.03B	20.53	10.27%	1.63%	-0.88%	-25.15%
CMC	67 Neutral	$6.67B	10.04	10.54%	1.02%	-1.61%	-81.36%
NUE	65 Neutral	$36.12B	21.58	8.49%	1.34%	1.66%	-31.25%
MT	65 Neutral	$36.22B	11.03	5.87%	1.03%	-4.51%	―
STLD	63 Neutral	$23.75B	21.13	13.31%	1.11%	-1.49%	-31.82%
Sector *	61 Neutral	$10.43B	7.12	-0.05%	2.87%	2.86%	-36.73%
PKX	52 Neutral	$17.25B	37.71	1.03%	3.22%	-8.97%	-67.03%

Nucor Corporate Events

Nucor Announces Executive Vice President Daniel Needham’s Retirement

On March 3, 2026, Nucor Corporation announced that Daniel R. Needham, its Executive Vice President of Commercial, will retire effective June 20, 2026, after nearly 26 years with the company. Needham, 60, joined Nucor in 2000 and advanced through a series of controller and general manager roles across multiple mills before being promoted to vice president in 2016 and executive vice president in 2021.

Nucor emphasized that Needham’s decision to retire is voluntary and aligned with the company’s succession planning, signaling an orderly leadership transition. Chief executive Leon Topalian credited Needham’s broad operational experience and leadership with strengthening Nucor’s position in the North American steel industry, suggesting that his tenure has contributed to the company’s current competitive footing while management continuity is maintained.

The most recent analyst rating on (NUE) stock is a Buy with a $194.00 price target. To see the full list of analyst forecasts on Nucor stock, see the NUE Stock Forecast page.

Nucor Names New Chief Financial Officer and EVP

On February 19, 2026, Nucor’s board elected John L. “Jack” Sullivan, then Vice President, Treasurer and General Manager of Investor Relations, as Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Executive Vice President, effective March 1, 2026. He succeeds Stephen D. Laxton, who became President and Chief Operating Officer on January 1, 2026, marking a planned evolution of the company’s senior leadership structure.

Sullivan, 52, joined Nucor in 2022 and previously spent 13 years at Duke Energy in treasury, corporate development and investor relations after nine years in corporate and investment banking at Bank of America. His promotion comes with an increased $680,000 base salary, adjusted incentive targets and entry into Nucor’s executive retirement and equity programs, underscoring the company’s commitment to seasoned financial leadership as it pursues long-term value for shareholders and other stakeholders.

The most recent analyst rating on (NUE) stock is a Buy with a $216.00 price target. To see the full list of analyst forecasts on Nucor stock, see the NUE Stock Forecast page.

Nucor Announces Q4 2025 Earnings and Dividend Declaration

On January 26, 2026, Nucor reported fourth-quarter 2025 net earnings attributable to shareholders of $378 million, or $1.64 per diluted share, on net sales of $7.69 billion, with adjusted net earnings of $400 million, or $1.73 per diluted share, after excluding impairment charges tied to closures or repurposing in the steel products segment and asset impairments in steel mills. Segment results showed weaker earnings versus the third quarter as steel mills, steel products and raw materials were all hit by lower volumes, margin compression and scheduled outages, though full-year figures highlighted ongoing profitability and contributions from new facilities in North Carolina, Arizona, Alabama and Indiana that came online in 2025. The company ended the year with $2.70 billion in cash and short-term investments, an undrawn $2.25 billion revolver and sector-leading investment-grade credit ratings, while returning about $1.2 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends, including a declared $0.56 per share quarterly dividend payable in February 2026; management signaled confidence for an earnings rebound in the first quarter of 2026 across all operating segments, led by higher volumes and pricing at steel mills and stronger demand supported by robust backlogs and supportive U.S. industrial policy.

The most recent analyst rating on (NUE) stock is a Hold with a $197.00 price target. To see the full list of analyst forecasts on Nucor stock, see the NUE Stock Forecast page.