Alcoa’s Q1 sales and earnings jump to a record high since 2018

Alcoa Corp. (NYSE: AA) said on Thursday that its sales and earnings jumped to a record high in the fiscal first quarter since 2018. The company topped Wall Street estimates in Q1 and expressed confidence that performance will show resilience in 2021 on the back of robust demand for aluminium as the global economy recovers from the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.  

Alcoa shares that you can learn to buy online here jumped roughly 4% in after-hours trading on Thursday. Including the price action, the stock is now exchanging hands at £24.81 per share. In comparison, it had started the year at a lower £16.87 per share.

Alcoa’s Q1 financial results versus analysts’ estimates

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Alcoa reported £126.97 million of earnings in the first quarter that translates to 67.47 pence per share. In the comparable quarter of last year, it had earned a sharply lower £58.04 million, or 31.20 pence per share.

Adjusted for non-recurring items, the American industrial corporation earned 57.32 pence per share in Q1 versus the year-ago figure of 16.69 pence of loss per share. Alcoa generated £2.08 billion of sales in the recent quarter, compared to £1.73 billion last year.

According to FactSet, experts had forecast the company to post £1.91 billion of sales in the first quarter. Their estimate for adjusted per-share earnings stood at a lower 32.65 pence.

CEO Roy Harvey commented on the earnings report on Thursday and said:

“We had an excellent first quarter with our best quarterly result since a record-setting year in 2018. We excelled from the top line to the bottom line, controlling production costs and capturing the benefits of improved demand and stronger prices for alumina and aluminium.”

In separate news from the United States, ARK on Friday bought £79.81 million of Coinbase shares.

Alcoa’s guidance for the full financial year

Alcoa now forecasts up to 14.1 million metric tons of total alumina shipments this year. Total annual bauxite shipments and aluminium shipments are expected at up to 50 million dry metric tons and up to 2.8 million metric tons, respectively.

Alcoa’s earnings report comes on the same day when PepsiCo said its profit and revenue came in better-than-expected in the fiscal first quarter.

Alcoa Corp performed slightly upbeat in the stock market last year with an annual gain of more than 7%. At the time of writing, it is valued at £4.44 billion.