Nucor Corporation
Nucor Corporation engages in the manufacture and sale of steel and steel products. The company operates in three segments: Steel Mills, Steel Products, and Raw Materials. The Steel Mills segment produces hot-rolled, cold-rolled, and galvanized sheet steel products; plate steel products; wide-flange beams, beam blanks, and H-piling and sheet piling structural steel products; and bar steel products, such as blooms, billets, concrete reinforcing and merchant bars, and engineered special bar quality products. This segment sells its products to steel service centers, fabricators, and manufacturers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, as well as engages in the steel trading and rebar distribution businesses. The Steel Products segment offers steel joists and joist girders, steel decks, and galvanized torque tubes for use in solar arrays, hollow structural section steel tubing, electrical conduit, fabricated concrete reinforcing steel, cold finished steel, steel fasteners, steel grating and expanded metal, wire and wire mesh, metal building systems, insulated metal panels, steel racking, overhead doors, and utility towers and structures for communications and energy transmission. This segment is also involved in the piling distribution business. The Raw Materials segment produces direct reduced iron (DRI); brokers ferrous and nonferrous metals, pig iron, hot briquetted iron, and DRI; supplies ferro-alloys; processes ferrous and nonferrous scrap metal; and engages in the natural gas production and industrial gas business. This segment sells its ferrous scrap to electric arc furnace steel mills and foundries for manufacturing process; and nonferrous scrap metal to aluminum can producers, secondary aluminum smelters, steel mills and other processors, and consumers of various nonferrous metals. Nucor Corporation was founded in 1905 and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
What does it do?
Nucor is America's largest steel company, turning scrap metal into the steel that builds skyscrapers, bridges, car parts, and pipelines. Instead of massive old-school blast furnaces, they use electric arc furnaces — basically giant recycling machines that melt down junked cars and old appliances into brand-new steel. They sell to construction companies, manufacturers, and industrial businesses across North America. Think of them as the backbone supplier for anything that gets built or made in America.
Steel is having a political moment — the push to rebuild American infrastructure, onshore manufacturing, and reduce reliance on Chinese imports has put domestic steel producers like Nucor directly in the spotlight. The CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act together represent trillions in spending that needs American-made steel. Tariffs on imported steel also give Nucor a pricing advantage that foreign competitors simply can't easily overcome.
How does it make money?
Nucor makes money across three main areas: their Steel Mills (the core business, producing raw steel products), Steel Products (turning that steel into finished goods like racking systems and metal buildings), and Raw Materials (securing the scrap metal and other inputs they need to make steel cheaply). Revenue hit $32.5 billion last year, up from $30.7 billion the year before — a 6% increase. Net income came in at $1.7 billion, meaning for every dollar of revenue, they kept about 5 cents as profit after all costs.
Why do investors care?
The big bet on Nucor is that America is entering a sustained period of industrial investment — building factories, data centers, and infrastructure all requires massive amounts of steel. Nucor's electric arc furnace model is also structurally cheaper and greener than traditional steelmaking, which matters as large corporate buyers increasingly demand lower-carbon supply chains. For the thesis to work, construction and manufacturing activity needs to stay strong, steel prices need to hold up, and the political will to protect domestic steel from cheap imports must continue.
Deep Dive
MemberA full investor briefing on Nucor Corporation — history, leadership, risks, and outlook.