NUCOR CORPORATION (NUE): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $250.50, NUCOR CORPORATION (NUE) is priced for +14.2% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-06-27.

Generated: 2026-08-30 · Exported: 2026-08-31 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/NUE

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 10.4% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: n/a

Valuation X-Ray

The price is justified by relative-multiple and growth-DCF; asset-based/earnings-power land below the price.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.3%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=13)

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

Bullet Takeaways

• Nucor is the largest and lowest-cost steelmaker in North America, running electric arc furnaces with a flexible, mostly variable cost base that lets it stay profitable deep into the down part of the steel cycle.
• The defining risk is that steel is cyclical: Q1 2026 earnings of $3.23 per share rode a 14% jump in average selling price and tariff-driven import relief, and a buyer at today's price is paying a multiple that requires demand and pricing to stay strong rather than mean-revert.
• Watch trade policy and steel prices: U.S. finished-steel import share fell from over 22% to about 15% under Section 232 tariffs, and management guided to higher earnings across all three segments in Q2 2026.

Bull Case

The obvious bear case on Nucor is that steel is a commodity and commodity earnings mean-revert, so paying up at the top of the cycle is a mistake. That is the right instinct for most steelmakers. It is the wrong one for the lowest-cost producer, and the data shows why. Nucor runs electric arc furnaces fed by scrap, a structure the 10-K describes as a "flexible, highly variable cost base," which means when demand falls the company can pull back output and cut cost in step rather than bleeding through fixed overhead the way an integrated blast-furnace mill does. The cost curve, not the cycle, is the durable advantage, and Nucor sits at the bottom of it.

That advantage is widening for a reason competitors cannot easily copy: emissions. The 10-K notes that customers are "expressing greater concern for the GHG emissions in their supply chains and are prioritizing" lower-carbon steel, and that electric arc furnaces have "a significantly lower GHG intensity than blast furnace based competitors who have historically supplied the region." As buyers weight carbon alongside price, Nucor's process becomes a commercial advantage rather than only a cost one, and it has spent years acquiring and building capacity in higher-margin downstream products to capture more of the value chain.

The recent print shows the model at work. Q1 2026 net sales rose 21% to $9.50 billion, diluted EPS of $3.23 beat the $2.82 consensus, and the steel mills segment posted record quarterly shipments alongside a 14% rise in average selling price per ton. Capital allocation rounds out the case: interest coverage runs around 20 times operating income, net debt is modest at about 1.4 times operating profit, and the share count has fallen roughly 4% a year, so the company returns cash while it compounds. Management guided to higher earnings across all three segments in the second quarter.

Bear Case

The price is making a specific bet that the bear should name precisely: that the current strong earnings are closer to the new normal than to a cyclical peak. At today's price, the math implies revenue growing on the order of 23% with operating margins near the high single digits, and the company is already earning a trailing operating margin around 9.3%, slightly above what the price requires it to settle at. In other words, the price is not betting on a margin miracle; it is betting that this above-mid-cycle level of profitability persists and grows. For a commodity producer, that is the heart of the question, because steel earnings have always been a function of where in the cycle you measure them.

The most fragile assumption baked into the price is that the favorable conditions of early 2026 hold. The Q1 strength leaned heavily on two things that can reverse: a 14% jump in average selling price per ton, and a sharp drop in import competition under Section 232 tariffs that took finished-steel import share from over 22% down to about 15%. Tariffs are policy, and policy changes. The 10-K is candid that surplus foreign output driven by "rather than price and demand signals" can flow into the U.S. and "result in downward pressure" on prices. If trade protection eases or global overcapacity finds its way back in, both the price per ton and the volume premium compress at once.

The valuation methods reflect how much of the cycle is already in the price. Asset value, earnings power, and peer multiples all read the stock as richly valued, with the earnings-power lens sitting several times below the price because it is measuring against earnings the cycle inflated. Only the growth-based methods reach the price, and they get there by assuming durable compounding. The balance sheet is sound, with net debt at about 1.4 times operating profit and coverage near 20 times, so this is not a solvency bear. It is a cyclicality bear: a buyer at today's price is underwriting the proposition that the steel cycle has flattened, and history says cycles rarely stay flat for long.

Valuation

The cleanest way to read Nucor's price is as a bet on durability rather than on cheapness. Inverting the price gives an implied revenue growth around 23% against an operating margin near the high single digits, roughly 8%, which is actually a touch below the trailing margin of about 9.3% the company earns today. The price is therefore not asking for an earnings breakout; it is asking for the current, above-average level of profitability to persist and to grow from here. For a cyclical, that is the entire valuation argument: is this the new run-rate or a peak.

The methods line up around that question. Asset value, earnings power, and peer multiples all read the stock as richly valued, and the earnings-power family sits well below the price precisely because trailing earnings are cycle-inflated. Only the growth-based methods reach the price, which means the premium is a durability or moat premium that the static frames structurally cannot price. That is the correct reading for the lowest-cost producer in a consolidating, tariff-protected domestic market, but it is a premium nonetheless, and it depends on the cycle cooperating. The right peer set is the domestic mini-mill and steel cohort rather than integrated global producers, because Nucor's cost structure and product mix behave differently through a downturn.

Solvency is the floor under the downside, and it is solid. Net debt of about $4.5 billion runs roughly 1.4 times pre-tax operating income, interest coverage is near 20 times, and the company holds about $2.5 billion in liquid assets, so the balance sheet can carry the business through a trough without distress. The falling share count, down about 4% a year, is direct evidence of buyback deployment rather than dilution. The decisive variable is not the balance sheet but the trade-and-demand environment that sets the price per ton; the current price assumes it stays favorable, and there is limited cushion in the multiple if it does not.

Catalysts

Q1 2026 was a strong upside print. Net sales rose 21% to $9.50 billion, diluted EPS of $3.23 beat the $2.82 consensus, and net earnings reached $743 million. The steel mills segment delivered record quarterly shipments and a 14% increase in average selling price per ton, and management guided to higher consolidated earnings across all three segments in the second quarter, signaling the momentum carried into mid-year.

Trade policy is the dominant external driver, and it broke in Nucor's favor. U.S. finished-steel import share fell from over 22% in Q1 2025 to roughly 15% in Q1 2026, which management attributed to the combination of Section 232 steel tariffs and trade-remedy orders reducing foreign supply. That import relief is what allowed both volume and price to rise together, so the durability of the tariff regime is the single most important thing to track for the earnings trajectory.

Analysts moved their targets in a wide band after the quarter, reflecting the cyclicality debate. BofA raised its target to $290 from $265 with a Buy, Morgan Stanley lifted its target to $258 from $227 at Equal Weight, and Wells Fargo trimmed its target to $283 from $292 while keeping an Overweight. The next earnings print, the path of steel prices, and any change in trade policy are the events most likely to move the stock, since each feeds directly into whether the current strong earnings prove durable.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Steel Mills (reported)

• STLD (Steel Dynamics, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …a significant market share in the domestic market. ​ 17 Table of Contents Steel Fabrication Operations Segment ​ Our steel fabrication operations consist of seven strategically located New Millennium Building Systems plants that serve the non-residential construction industry throughout the United States. These…
• FY2025 10-K: …vertically connected businesses support our higher through-cycle steel production and overall profitability. Our internal manufacturing operations provide a significant competitive advantage by contributing to more stable through-cycle earnings and cash flow generation. Our steel fabrication operations and downstream…
• CLF (CLEVELAND-CLIFFS INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …through one reportable segment - the Steelmaking segment. Our primary steel producing and finishing facilities are located across Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ontario. We currently operate seven blast furnaces and four EAFs with the configured capability of producing approximately 20.0 million net tons…
• FY2025 10-K: Acquisition had been consummated on January 1, 2023, nor are they indicative of future results. NOTE 4 - REVENUES We generate our revenue through product sales, in which shipping terms indicate when we have fulfilled our performance obligations and transferred control of products to our customer. Our revenue…
• CMC (COMMERCIAL METALS COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: …shapes and other special sections, wire rod and semi-finished billets for rerolling. 4. Fabricate the finished products into custom shapes and lengths for end use by our customers. 5. Reclaim end-of-life steel material as feedstock for new steel products, thereby starting our cycle of steel production once again. We…
• FY2025 10-K: America. Nonferrous scrap metal is not material to this segment's operations. Our mini mill is a significant manufacturer of rebar, merchant bar, wire rod and semi-finished billets in Central Europe and includes three rolling lines. The first rolling line is designed to allow efficient and flexible production of a…
• TX (TERNIUM S.A.)
• FY2025 20-F: …sell unused balances to the Mexican and Brazilian electric grids. In the steel segment, steel products include slabs, billets and round bars (steel in its basic, semi-finished state), plates, hot-rolled coils and sheets, bars and stirrups, wire rods, cold-rolled coils and sheets, tin plate, hot dipped galvanized and…
• FY2025 20-F: …of Operations." The prices of our steel products generally reflect international market prices for similar products adjusted to reflect regional conditions. We adjust prices for our products periodically in response to changes in the import prices of foreign steel, export prices, and supply and demand. For further…
• TS (Tenaris SA)
• FY2025 20-F: …steel coils and plates into steel pipes. Steel companies that manufacture steel coils and other steel products but do not operate specialized seamless steel mills are generally not competitors in the market for seamless steel pipe products, although they often produce welded steel pipes or sell steel coils and plates…
• FY2025 20-F: …shop with an annual production capacity of 430,000 tons of steel bars and a heat treatment line. This facility supplies steel bars both to our Bay City and Ambridge seamless pipe rolling mills but has insufficient capacity to supply the full steel requirements of both mills, whose steel requirements are supplemented…
• ATI (ATI INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …place at facilities in Cudahy, Appleton and Coon Valley, WI, and Irvine, CA. In addition, we lease a facility in Margate, Florida to perform metal alloy-based additive manufacturing for the aerospace & defense industries. Within the AA&S segment, our production of zirconium, hafnium, niobium and related specialty…
• FY2025 10-K: …Segment Our AA&S segment produces nickel-based alloys, titanium and titanium-based alloys, and specialty alloys in a variety of forms, including plate and sheet products. The major end markets for our flat rolled products are aerospace & defense, specialty and conventional energy, automotive, medical and electronics…
• CRS (CARPENTER TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …Products. The SAO segment is comprised of the Company's major premium alloy and stainless steel manufacturing operations. This includes operations performed at mills primarily in Reading and Latrobe, Pennsylvania and surrounding areas as well as South Carolina and Alabama. The combined assets of the SAO operations…
• FY2025 10-K: …additional information. (6) Competition: We are leaders in specialty materials for critical applications with over 135 years of metallurgical and manufacturing expertise. Our business is highly competitive. We manufacture and supply materials to a variety of end-use market sectors and compete with various companies…

Steel Products (reported)

• WOR (WORTHINGTON ENTERPRISES, INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …cyclical and can be impacted by both market demand and raw material supply, particularly with respect to steel. The demand for our products is directly related to, and quickly impacted by, customer demand in our end markets, which can change as the result of changes in the general U.S. or global economies and other…
• FY2025 10-K: Steel, Inc. 8-K 10.2 12/5/2023 10.39 Employee Matters Agreement, dated November 30, 2023, between Worthington Enterprises, Inc. and Worthington Steel, Inc. 8-K 10.3 12/5/2023 10.40 Trademark License Agreement, dated November 30, 2023, between Worthington Enterprises, Inc. and Worthington Steel, Inc. 8-K 10.4 12/5/2023…
• MLI (MUELLER INDUSTRIES INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …Great Britain, South Korea, and the Middle East. Additionally, products are sold and marketed through a complement of agents, which, when combined with our sales organization, provide the Company broad geographic market representation. The total amount of order backlog for the Piping Systems segment as of December…
• FY2025 10-K: …buildings. Repairs and remodeling projects are also important drivers of underlying demand for these products. In addition, our products are used in various transportation, automotive, and industrial applications. Piping Systems Segment The Piping Systems segment is composed of Domestic Piping Systems Group, Great…
• CMC (COMMERCIAL METALS COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: …ferrous scrap metals, we compete primarily on the quality and price of our products. Our Europe Steel Group recycling facilities operate to provide raw materials almost exclusively to our mini mill in Poland. We produce a significant percentage of the total U.S. output of rebar and merchant bar through our EAF steel…
• FY2025 10-K: …prefabricated and modular system for constructing reinforced concrete bridge components off-site, which are then installed on-site with poured concrete for a cast-in-place structure. The strategy in the Emerging Businesses Group segment is to provide construction-related solutions and value-added products with strong…

Raw Materials (reported)

• CMC (COMMERCIAL METALS COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: • competition from other materials or from competitors that have a lower cost structure or access to greater financial resources; • information technology interruptions and breaches in security; • our ability to make necessary capital expenditures; • availability and pricing of raw materials and other items over which…
• FY2025 10-K: …automobile salvage firms, wrecking companies and retail individuals. Our recycling facilities utilize specialized equipment to efficiently process large volumes of ferrous material, including seven large machines capable of shredding obsolete automobiles or other sources of scrap metal. Certain facilities also have…
• STLD (Steel Dynamics, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …price, quality, customer service, and proximity to the customer. We also face potential competition from other producers of aluminum products in attempting to secure aluminum scrap supply through direct purchasing from our scrap suppliers. ​ ​ ​ ​ Other Information ​ Sources, Availability, and Cost of Steel and Other…
• FY2025 10-K: …as metallic raw materials, electricity, water, natural gas and its transportation services, fuel, air products, zinc, and electrodes. Our risk strategy associated with product sales has generally been to obtain competitive prices for our products and to allow operating results to reflect market price movements…
• TX (TERNIUM S.A.)
• FY2025 20-F: …price and availability of raw materials, semi-finished steel and energy, which reflect supply and demand factors in the global steel industry. Ternium purchases substantial quantities of raw materials (including iron ore, coal, ferroalloys and scrap) and slabs for use in the production of its steel products. The…
• FY2025 20-F: …a trend toward steel industry consolidation among competitors, and current competitors in the steel market could become larger competitors in the future. For further information on competition and investments in the steel industry, see Item 4. "Information on the Company-B. Business Overview-Competition." Moreover,…
• TS (Tenaris SA)
• FY2025 20-F: Supply Chain Transparency We engage with our suppliers to gather climate change and carbon information about our main raw materials. This helps us include product-specific upstream emission factors in our inventory, improve the accuracy of our Scope 3 emissions reporting and identify opportunities for collaboration to…
• FY2025 20-F: …digitalization in Hickman in the United States, to improve process control and operational efficiency; and the continued rollout of our offices' redesign project aimed at aligning our workspace to a more contemporary way of working. Raw Materials and Energy The majority of our seamless steel pipe products are…
• HWM (HOWMET AEROSPACE INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …substantial capital expenditures, or purchase alternative material at higher costs to fulfill customer orders. Additionally, a delivery delay by us due to production interruptions could subject us to liability from customer claims that such delay resulted in losses to the customer. Furthermore, product manufacturing…
• FY2025 10-K: Products Rings Barberton, OH Forged Wheels Wheels Machining Brecksville, OH (2) Engine Products Aerospace and Gas Turbine Castings Tooling Canton, OH (2) Engineered Structures Titanium Mill Products Cleveland, OH Engine Products; Engineered Structures; Forged Wheels Forgings, Aerospace and Gas Turbine Castings…
• AA (Alcoa Corp)
• FY2025 10-K: …of the joint venture partners; • 25.1% interest in MBAC located in Ras Al Khair, Saudi Arabia; • 100% of the refinery and alumina-based chemicals assets at San Ciprián, Spain; • 100% of Alcoa Steamship Company LLC, a company that procures ocean freight and commercial shipping services for Alcoa in the ordinary course…
• FY2025 10-K: …meets or exceeds their power needs, while others purchase electricity from third-party suppliers. For each metric ton (mt) of alumina produced, Alcoa consumes the following amounts of the identified raw material inputs (approximate range across relevant facilities): Raw Material Units Consumption per mt of Alumina…
• CSTM (CONSTELLIUM SE)
• FY2025 10-K: …and demand as well as production and raw material costs for a given primary aluminum shape and alloy combination in a particular region. Raw materials used in our products include alloying elements, such as copper, lithium, magnesium, manganese, silicon, silver or zinc . Prices for these alloying elements are subject…
• FY2025 10-K: …with our 10 largest customers representing approximately 56% of our revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025 . We generally have long-term relationships with our large customers, many of which span decades. We see our relationships with our customers as partnerships. In each of our end-markets, we closely…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.