- Steel equities are leading the underperformance within the metals and mining sector after Pres. Trump said he was delaying steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union, Mexico and Canada until June 1.
- Steel equities’ underperformance is led by AK Steel (AKS -8.8%), down as much as 9.8% intraday; also X -7.3%, CMC -4.1%, STLD -3.6%, MT -3.6%, RS -3.2%, NUE -2.9%.
- Cowen analyst Chris Krueger says he was slightly surprised that the EU was granted a month exemption without any tangible evidence of progress on quotas; all three trading partners have said they would not bend on quotas, so another month of policy tail risk remains.
- Aluminum names are mostly lower, but Alcoa (AA +1.1%) is higher after a Brazil federal judge ordered Norsk Hydro (OTCQX:NHYDY) to keep alumina operations at 50%, which Bloomberg analyst Andrew Cosgrove thinks is potentially positive for AA but negative for Century Aluminum (CENX -3.8%).
- The SPDR S&P Metals & Mining (P:XME) ETF (XME -2.2%) pared its earlier loss, after a large block trade hit the tape when the fund was at session lows.
- ETFs: SLX, JJU, FOIL
- Source: Bloomberg First Word
- Now read: AK Steel: The Trick May Work Again
Original article