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U.S. Steel Corp. stock jumped more than 7% in the extended trading session Thursday after the steel producer topped Wall Street expectations, swung to a quarterly profit and raised its dividend.
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said it earned $2 billion, or $6.97 a share, in the third quarter, swinging from a loss of $234 million, or $1.06 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned $5.36 a share in the quarter.
Revenue rose more than 150% to $6 billion, compared with $2.3 billion a year ago.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected U.S. Steel to report adjusted earnings of $4.81 a share on sales of $5.8 billion for the quarter.
“Our balance sheet has been transformed and the cash flow generation of the business has us highly confident in our ability to pre-fund organic growth investments that will expand our existing competitive advantages, ” Chief Executive Officer David B. Burritt said in a statement.
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“It’s not either investing in our business or returning capital directly to stockholders, it’s both,” he said. The company has a $300 million stock buyback program and a dividend of 5 cents a share “to begin directly rewarding stockholders for the progress we have made so far,” Burritt said. The dividend increased from 1 cent a share.
Shares of U.S. Steel ended the regular trading day up 0.3%. So far this year, the company has gained about 40%, compared with gains of around 22% for the S&P 500 index
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