Cleveland-Cliffs' Q1 Earnings Miss Estimates, Revenues Beat

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. CLF logged a loss (as reported) of $495 million or $1.00 per share in the first quarter of 2025, wider than a loss of $67 million or 14 cents per share a year ago.

Barring one-time items, the first-quarter adjusted loss was 92 cents per share. This compares to earnings of 18 cents in the prior-year quarter. It was wider than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 78 cents.

Revenues fell around 11% from the year-ago quarter to $4,629 million. The top line, however, beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4,596.6 million.

The results in the reported quarter were impacted by the underperformance of non-core assets and the lagging effect of lower index prices in late 2024 and early 2025.

(Find the latest EPS estimates and surprises on Zacks Earnings Calendar.)

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. Quote

CLF’s Operational Highlights

The company reported Steelmaking revenues of $4,467 million for the first quarter, down around 11% year over year. The figure missed our estimate of $4,495 million.

The average net selling price per net ton of steel products was $980 in the quarter, down around 17% year over year. It lagged our estimate of $986.

External sales volumes for steel products were roughly 4.14 million net tons, up around 5% year over year. It beat our estimate of 4.06 million net tons.

CLF’s Financial Position

Cleveland-Cliffs ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $57 million, up around 6% from the prior quarter. Long-term debt increased roughly 8% sequentially to $7,601 million.

Net cash used by operating activities was $351 million in the reported quarter.

CLF’s Outlook

The company now expects a reduction of approximately $50 per net ton in steel unit costs in 2025 compared with 2024, compared with its earlier expectation of a $40 per net ton reduction, mainly due to the idling of underperforming assets.

Capital expenditures are now projected to total around $625 million, compared with $700 million expected earlier. CLF also revised its forecast for selling, general and administrative expenses to roughly $600 million from the prior view of around $625 million. Depreciation, depletion, and amortization expenses are projected at roughly $1.1 billion. 

CLF’s Price Performance

Shares of CLF are down 51.3% in the past year compared with the Zacks Steel Producers industry’s 36.8% decline.

CLF’s Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks

CLF currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Better-ranked stocks in the Basic Materials space are Hawkins, Inc. HWKN, Avino Silver & Gold Mines Ltd. ASM and Contango Ore, Inc. CTGO, each carrying a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Hawkins is scheduled to report fiscal fourth-quarter results on May 14. The consensus estimate for Hawkins’ fourth-quarter earnings is pegged at 74 cents. HWKN beat the consensus estimate in one of the last four quarters while missing thrice, with the average earnings surprise being 6.1%.
 
Avino Silver & Gold Mines is slated to release first-quarter results on May 13. The consensus estimate for ASM’s first-quarter earnings is pegged at 3 cents. ASM has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 94.4%, on average.  

Contango is scheduled to report first-quarter results on May 14. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CTGO’s first-quarter earnings is pegged at a loss of 32 cents per share. CTGO beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters while missing it once, with the average surprise being 213.7%.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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