US aluminium giant Alcoa has reported a 59 per cent rise in year-over-year earnings, pointing to strong efficiency gains and a slightly tighter supply market.
But in an interview with CNBC after the results, chief executive Klaus Kleinfeld declined to rule out selling Alcoa's raw material assets: "This is not the time to speculate," he said.
Stubbornly low aluminum prices have weighed on the company's business of mining bauxite, refining into alumina, and smelting alumina to produce aluminum.
Recent growth has come thanks to Alcoa's downstream business. Indeed, in the first quarter, earnings also rose in the "engineered products and solutions" segment, which sells cast metal products like aluminum wheels and aircraft parts.
Advertisement Alcoa, the first of the S&P 500 companies to report quarterly results, maintained its forecast for 7 per cent growth in global aluminum demand this year. Even so, its shares slipped 1 per cent to $US8.30 in trading after the bell.
Alcoa is viewed as a bellwether for the materials sector, and some look to it for hints on the health of the broader economy. A strong earnings season could send US equity markets to new highs, but disappointing results could halt a rally that has already slowed.
The S&P 500 hit an all-time closing high last Tuesday, but still posted its worst week this year, hurt by Friday's worse-than-expected jobs data.
Net income rose to $US149 million, or 13 cents a share, from $US94 million, or 9 cents, a year earlier. Revenue slipped 3 per cent to $US5.8 billion.
Excluding restructuring charges and other items, earnings rose to $US121 million, or 11 cents a share, from $US105 million, or 10 cents.
Analysts, on average, had been expecting 8 cents a share on revenue of $US5.88 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
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