QualityDipStocks / Industrials · Steel
Nucor NUE
Not in a dip: trading near its 52-week high.
A quality company. No fair value estimate for now: a capital-spending surge is squeezing its free cash flow.
- Fair value est.
- n/a
- Market Value
- forming
- Off 52-wk high
- −1%
- Risk vs market
- Below marketbeta 0.88
4 bullish · 5 bearish See why
Key levels
Every level vs today’s $273.87
- 52-wk lowlowest close, 1 year$142.66−47.9%
- PriceFri Oct 30 close$273.87you are here
- 52-wk highhighest close, 1 year$275.29+0.5%
Fair value estimate
Estimate unreliable for NUE: free cash flow is squeezed by a capital-spending surge (capex is 64% of operating cash flow over the last 12 months, vs 31% in FY2023), so a DCF on today's free cash flow would understate the business. We’d rather show nothing than a made-up number.
Risk vs market
How risk vs market is measured
One year of daily returns (Oct 30 to Oct 30, 252 sessions). Beta = how much NUE moved for each 1% move in the S&P 500 (SPY); 1.0 moves with the market. Volatility is the yearly standard deviation of daily returns. Past behavior, not a forecast.
Moves a bit less than the market, and its own price swings are 2.4× the S&P 500’s.
- Beta vs S&P 500
- 0.88
- Volatility
- 31% vs 13% SPY
- Correlation SPY
- 0.36
- Correlation QQQ
- 0.25
Bull vs bear
Rule-based from the data on this page, strongest first. Not advice.
Top bullish points 4 of 5
GrowthSales grew 17% to $36.1B over the last 12 months vs the 12 months before (SEC filings).
Balance sheetDebt / equity of 0.3×, below the 0.5× median for the 116 Industrials companies we cover.
ValuationPrice / book of 2.8×, below the 4.4× median for the 134 Industrials companies we cover.
QualityPasses all four of our quality checks: cash generation, returns on capital, growth and balance sheet.
Top bearish points 5 of 5
ProfitabilityGross margin narrowed to 11.9% in FY2025 from 22.5% in FY2023 (SEC filings).
ValuationP/E of 21.8× is 45% above its own average of 15.1× at the last 3 fiscal year-ends.
ProfitabilityReturn on equity fell 13 points in two fiscal years, to 8% in FY2025.
GrowthSales shrank 8% a year from FY2022 to FY2025.
RiskCyclical business: one strong year of cash flow can make it look cheaper than it is.
Who’s talking about it
Notable investors, executives, analysts and public figures on Nucor in the last 48 hours. Headlines as published, each linked. Their words, not ours.
No notable mentions in the last 48 hours. Checked Nov 1, 9:09 PM ET.
Compare with peers
Closest in size in Steel
All fundamentals
P/E 21.8 · FCF yield 2.5% · ROE 14%
Valuation
- P/E
- 21.8×3-yr-end avg 15.1× · Industrials median 27.5×
- Price / FCF
- 39.5×
- FCF yield
- 2.5%
- EV / EBITDA
- n/aD&A or debt not tagged in SEC data
- Price / sales
- 1.73×
- Price / book
- 2.83×
- Market cap
- $62.5Blisted
- Enterprise value
- $66.9B
Growth
- Revenue, 12 months
- $36.1B
- Sales growth, 12 months
- +17.2%vs the 12 months before
- Sales growth, 3 yrs
- −7.8%/yrfrom FY2022
- Diluted EPS, 12 months
- $12.53
- EPS growth, last FY
- −11.1%
- Net income, 12 months
- $2.9B
- Net income growth
- +123%12 months vs before
Profitability
- Gross margin
- 15.5%
- Operating margin
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Net margin
- 8.0%
- FCF margin
- 4.4%
- Return on equity
- 14%
- Return on invested capital
- n/aoperating income, debt, equity or cash not tagged
Balance sheet
- Cash & short-term inv.
- $2.7B
- Total debt
- $7.1B
- Net cash
- −$4.4B
- Debt / equity
- 0.32×
- Interest coverage
- n/ainterest expense not tagged in SEC data
Cash flow & returns
- Free cash flow, 12 months
- $1.6B
- FCF growth, 12 months
- n/anot reported in its SEC filings
- Dividend yield
- 0.82%$512M paid
- Payout ratio
- 18%
- Buybacks, 12 months
- $675M1.1% of market cap
- Share count, 1 year
- −1.0%diluted shares vs a year ago
- Stock-based comp
- $146M
Trailing 12 months to Jul 4, 2026; balance sheet at Jul 4, 2026. From Nucor’s SEC filings. Sparklines show up to six fiscal years. n/a means we don’t hold that number, with the reason. How each is computed.
Valuation details
Setup & signals
No setup armed
No setup armed, so there’s no trigger or stop to track yet. Reversal signal rules only arm once a company is in a dip.
Momentum & 52-week range
RSI 67 · 5 days +6.1%
The business
FCF $2.7B · Sales +23%
- Free cash flow, 12 months$2.7B
- Free-cash-flow yield4.3%
- Free-cash-flow margin7%
- Gross margin17%
- Operating margin13%
- Return on invested capital14%
- Return on equity17%
- Sales growth (latest quarter vs year-ago quarter)+23%
- Net debt / EBITDA0.7×
Information only, not investment advice. Fair value estimates and talking points are rule-based model output from public data and can be wrong; stop levels are reference points, not orders. How every number is computed.
Get a text when NUE fires a reversal signal
One text when a published rule fires on NUE or any of the 333 quality companies we track: the ticker, the price, the stop and a link to the numbers. Nothing else.