Nucor Corp (NUE) 2008 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Nucor Corporation third quarter 2008 earnings release conference call. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will come at that time. Certain statements made in this conference call are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Although Nucor believes they are based on reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that future events will not affect their accuracy. Some of the important factors that may cause actual results to differ from our predictions are listed in Nucor's SEC filings. The forward-looking statements made in this conference call speak only as of this date and Nucor does not assume any obligation to update them. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Dan DiMicco, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Nucor Corporation. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for Nucor's conference call. We appreciate very much your interest in Nucor. We will briefly review Nucor's record-breaking third quarter performance, which is a direct result of our disciplined implementation of Nucor's growth strategy and the exceptional execution by our operating teams. Our multiprong growth strategy continues to deliver extremely strong long-term returns on our shareholders' valuable capital, and we see more profitable growth still ahead of us. Both Nucor's growth strategy and business model position us for delivering higher highs and higher lows throughout the economic cycles.

Before reviewing our results, I would like to say thank you and job well done to all 22,000 members of the Nucor team for delivering record third quarter earnings of $735 million and record first nine months earnings of $1.7 billion. This performance also set a new quarterly earnings record for Nucor overall, breaking our previous record of $581 million earned in this year's second quarter. Nucor's net income for the first nine months of 2008 was only $32 million shy of our annual record set in 2006 at $1.8 billion. 2008 will be a record year, our fourth in the last five years. As always, our teams are working safe, working smart, working hard, and working together to take care of our customers and of each other. You have proven again that Nucor's most significant competitive advantage remains our employees -- the right people working together as a team. On behalf of myself and our entire team here in Charlotte, I want to say thank you.

I also want to extend a warm welcome to the newest additions to our Nucor family. In recent months, we have expanded two of our growth platforms -- our David J. Joseph scrap business and our Harris Steel rebar fabrication business. DJJ acquired Victoria Recycling and American Compressed Steel and Harris acquired Ambassador Steel Corporation. We are very excited that each of these organizations become part of the Nucor team. Together, we are looking forward to a very bright future of profitable growth. Again, welcome to all of you.

The third quarter of 2008 is Nucor's 19th consecutive quarter of exceptionally strong profitability. Over this period, our quarterly net income has averaged $387 million. To put that number in perspective, our average quarterly net income since the first quarter of 2004 exceeds our prior record annual earnings obtained in 2000, the last cyclical peak in the US economy. This is worth repeating. The third quarter of 2008 is Nucor's 19th consecutive quarter of exceptionally strong profitability and over this period, our quarterly net income has averaged $387 million. Again, to put it in perspective, our average quarterly income since the first quarter of 2004 exceeds our prior record annual earnings attained in 2000, the last cyclical peak in the US economy. 2008 is on track to be our fifth consecutive year of exceptionally strong profitability. As I just mentioned, it will be our fourth record earnings year over the past five. Our team has clearly done an outstanding job generating higher highs. We have done it by building on our multiple platforms for growing earnings and shareholder value.

Entering the fourth quarter, the global economy has been negatively impacted by the crisis in the financial markets. What started out as a seasonal slowdown due to temporary global market disruptions such as the six-month China Olympics effect and the Middle Eastern religious holidays has now been overwhelmed by worldwide financial crisis, unique in both size and scope in our lifetime. The business environment has obviously become significantly more challenging for everyone, including Nucor. There is no forward visibility by either the economy or our industry. These conditions are such that financial projections are not practical. Therefore, we will not be providing numerical or qualitative guidance at this time. We will give an update of our business at the normal time midway between today and our next earnings release.

What we can say is that 2008 will be another record year for Nucor and today our competitive position is stronger than ever, both here and globally. If recent initiatives taken by governments throughout the world prove to be successful, then businesses should see significantly improved access to credit, enhanced improved economic activity beginning early in 2009. We remain strong believers in the long-term strength of the global infrastructure build and the resulting bull market for steel. It is this global growth in steel demand that will help drive our growth and profitability in the years ahead.

In light of today's uncertain economic outlook, I would like to review Nucor's position of strength. Our company has unrivaled position of strength in North America's steel industry, which is built around these foundations. Our balance sheet, our financial strength and our conservative financial practices. Our highly variable cost structure, our diversified product mix -- the most diversified in North America. Our stringent discipline of walking away from acquisitions if it threatens our acquisition principles. And most important of all, our people. These strengths are important. They position us to build upon Nucor's long history of taking advantage of economic downturns to expand our long-term earnings power.

Our track record speaks loudly for itself. We emerged from downturns stronger than when we entered them. That is exactly what our team did during the last downturn from 2001 to 2003. Nucor's disciplined work over this period positioned our company to deliver a six-fold increase in our cyclical peak earnings power. Six-fold increase. I can assure you that our team is primed and ready to take full advantage of the current economic downturn. As always, Nucor will move ahead with the discipline and conservative business practices that we apply consistently throughout the cycles. With the Nucor culture's can-do attitude and energy level, we will continue to opportunistically strengthen and expand multiple growth platforms.

We will do that by ongoing implementation of our highly successful four-pronged growth strategy. First, optimizing our existing operations. Second, greenfield growth, exploring new technologies and marketplace niches. Third, international growth through joint ventures. And fourth, pursuing strategic acquisitions. The opportunities that were not available a year ago are now too numerous to mention. We will be selective, but more importantly, have the balance sheet to participate in the continuing consolidation if the price is right and the culture fits. We will exercise this strategy within our core business of steel making, upstream raw materials, and downstream steel products and international growth. It is also extremely important to recognize that Nucor's success is the result of our team's long-term focus. Managing with a long-term perspective is at the core of everything Nucor does.

And with that perspective, we strongly believe that fixing our country's financial crisis will require long-term thinking and long-term solutions. It is time for our nation to address long overdue energy and infrastructure needs and it is time also to restore America's manufacturing base, with sound fiscal and trade policies. Quite simply, the United States must get back to the business of making things. We must also make a very strong move towards energy and dependence and a focused rebuilding of our physical infrastructure. A strong manufacturing base will provide the type of jobs that will fuel sustainable growth in a rising standard of living. Our economy can no longer be built on unprudent or unethical financial engineering or an economy focused on providing short-term gratification to consumers already buried under a mountain of debt. We believe the steel industry will be a significant beneficiary of the policies required to return our nation to sound economic health and growth.

Additionally, we continue to see a very bright long-term outlook for the global steel industry. Not only do the developed countries have sizable infrastructure building and rebuilding work ahead, the rest of the world's peoples want a better standard of living and they deserve one. The steel industry will continue to be a dynamic business long into the future. With Nucor's position of strength to take advantage of profitable growth opportunities, both in the United States and in international markets, my confidence has never been greater that Nucor's best years are still ahead of us.

At this time, I would like to ask Terry Lisenby, our CFO, to share with you his thoughts on our results and on our financial position. Terry?

Thanks, Dan, and good afternoon. Nucor's third quarter of 2008 earnings of $2.31 per diluted share exceeded our increased quarterly earnings guidance of $2.15 to $2.20. As Dan mentioned, third quarter earnings per share were a record, exceeding the previous record of $1.94 set in this year's second quarter. These better than expected earnings were the result of strong overall performance across our diversified product lines and impressive contributions from our acquisitions of the last 18 months. It is also worth noting that our third quarter results included a LIFO inventory charge of $140 million. At the close of the quarter, Nucor's LIFO inventory reserve exceeded $1 billion compared to a LIFO inventory reserve of $582 million at year end 2007.

First nine months of 2008 diluted EPS were $5.70, also a record and our year to date EPS exceeded our annual record of $5.68 reached in 2006. These first nine months of 2008 earnings included a record LIFO inventory charge of $423 million. Our balance sheet positions Nucor to not only weather today's economic turbulence, but also to capitalize on attractive investment opportunities that may develop in an economic downturn. As always, Nucor will be both disciplined and opportunistic in pursuing profitable growth that rewards our shareholders with attractive returns.

At the end of the third quarter, cash and short-term investments totaled $1.7 billion. We have a written policy in place for our cash investments. It focuses on safety and capital preservation. As one example of this policy, Nucor has never invested in auction rate securities. Debt totaled $3.3 billion and our debt to capital ratio was 28%. $3.1 billion of our debt matures in 2012 and beyond, with approximately $2.2 billion maturing after 2017. Nucor holds the highest credit rating of any North American metals and mining company awarded by Standard & Poor's and Moody's. In addition to giving us superior flexibility and growing our business, our strong credit ratings provide us significant cost savings in managing our business.

Cash provided by operating activities for the first nine months of 2008 was $1.3 billion. While very healthy, cash flow has been impacted by the higher working capital requirements, resulting from increases in scrap costs and steel selling prices earlier this year. Increased receivables and inventories reduced operating cash flow by about $1.5 billion. However, recent dramatic declines in scrap prices will reduce our working capital requirements and increase operating cash flow in the fourth quarter. Capital expenditures for this year's first nine months were $806 million. Over half of those outlays were at greenfield projects -- the Memphis SBQ bar mill, the Decatur sheet mills galvanizing facility, the Arkansas castrip plant, and the Utah building systems facility. Full year 2008 capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $1 billion.

The Nucor team has never been more excited by our extremely strong competitive position and our ability to continue generating attractive returns on our shareholders' valuable capital. Thank you for your interest in Nucor. Dan?

Thank you, Terry. Ham Lott will update us on Nucor's downstream steel products businesses. Ham?

Thank you, Dan. Good afternoon. Nucor has significant market positions in four fabricated construction products -- open wedge steel joist, steel decking, preengineered metal buildings, and rebar fabrication. I want to thank all of the fabricated construction product teams for their hard work in today's very challenging economic conditions and I also want to thank our Harris Steel Group for their strong contribution to Nucor's profitability through the third quarter.

Nucor's downstream businesses have more than four decades of experience in managing through cyclical downturns. Through the cycles, these businesses have generated and will continue to generate attractive returns to Nucor shareholders. At the same time, the base load of volume, our downstream businesses provide Nucor's steel making operations is particularly valuable to the mills and to Nucor overall during economic downturns. As always, the mills earn this business by providing quality, service, and competitive pricing to their sister divisions. The key to Nucor success in downstream steel products is our ability to build market leadership positions. To that point, Harris Steel, continues to be a powerful growth platform for Nucor and the rebar fabrication business. In August, Harris required Ambassador Steel Corporation for a cash purchase price of approximately $185 million. Based in Auburn, Indiana, Ambassador is a fabricator and distributor of rebar. In 2007, Ambassador shipped 422,000 tons of fabricated rebar and distributed another 228,000 tons. With the addition of Ambassador to the other acquisitions Harris Steel has completed, our rebar fabrication business has more than doubled since Nucor acquired Harris in March of 2007. And Ambassador does more than just significantly grow the size of our business. Ambassador expands our footprint through the Midwestern US, the Gulf Coast region, and into the southeastern United States. We are very excited to welcome Ambassador teams to Nucor and to the Harris family. Dan? Thank you, Ham. I'll ask our Chief Operating Officer John Ferriola to update us on Nucor's steel making and raw materials operations. John?

Thanks, Dan. Good afternoon, and thank you for your interest in Nucor. I will begin by offering my strongest congratulations to all of our teammates at Nucor's steel mills and raw material businesses for delivering outstanding results in the third quarter and the first nine months of 2008. Record steel mill profitability was achieved during an unprecedented surge in the pricing of our key raw material scrap. From the fourth quarter of 2007 to this year's third quarter, Nucor's average usage cost of scrap and scrap substitutes nearly doubled. It increased from $285 per ton in the fourth quarter of 2007 to $533 per ton in the third quarter. Yet over the same period, the spread between selling prices and the [talent] cost at our steel mills actually increased by $193 per ton. It's extremely important to note the significant earnings contribution from our recently acquired David J. Joseph scrap business. Not only did the DJJ processing and brokerage groups report strong earnings, their interaction and partnership with our steel mills was critical to Nucor's record steel making profits. Our excitement continues to build over what we are achieving by bringing together the best of the best in both the steel making and scrap businesses. I again congratulate and thank the teams at all of our steel mills and raw material operations for once again getting the job done for our customers and our shareholders and especially for getting it done safely.

Dan noted in his remarks that remarks that the economic environment has become more challenging in the fourth quarter as a result of the financial markets crisis. But even more importantly, Dan discussed our company's position of strength. I will highlight three of these things. Our teams capitalized on these strengths to grow our long-term earnings power through the cycles, both up and down.

First, Nucor's cost structure is highly variable. Scrap and scrap substitutes represent more than half of our total cost of making steel and the price of scrap is highly elastic and responding to changes in demand to steel and steel products. Earlier this year, we witnessed a sharp rise in scrap prices driven by strong global steel demand. And now with the abrupt change in the economic picture, we are seeing dramatic declines in scrap pricing. After reaching peak levels in July of this year, the American Metal Market, Chicago's traded index price has dropped by $360 per ton over the last three months and the American Metal Market, Chicago number 1 busheling index price has dropped by $600 per ton over the same period. Over many previous economic cycles, declining scrap costs have provided a significant cushion to our margins against the adverse impact of lower steel demand and pricing. And I should also point out that other components of our cost structure are highly variable, including labor, energy, alloys, and other inputs.

The second important strength I will highlight is the flexibility of our production process. Nucor produces steel using 22 electric arc furnaces throughout our company. The beauty of electric arc furnaces, or EAFs, as we call them, is that they can literally be turned on and off at will. This very flexible nature of EAFs allows our steel mills to almost instantaneously adjust our production to match market demand. In fact, each of our mills is essentially a market mill that produces very specific product ranges, and as our products are highly custom made, reflecting a large number of different chemistries, shapes and sizes, it is market demand for order entry that determines our production schedules. That flexibility was evident as recently as the month of September. As orders began to decline last month, we were forced to cut production to match the reduced order entry and avoid building unwanted inventory. For that reason, our third quarter of 2008 steel production declined nearly 9% from the second quarter levels. The cutbacks varied by mill and by product, reflecting differing demand patterns to individual products.

The third important strength of our operations is our product diversification. Nucor is North America's most diversified steel producer. Here is the composition of our sales tons through the first nine months of 2009. 31% sheet, 21% bars, 12% beams, 10% plate, 12% downstream steel products, and 14% scrap processing and brokerage. In the third quarter, we again benefited from our diversified product portfolio. Relatively stronger volumes at our plate and beam mills partially offset softer volumes at our sheet and bar mills. Highlighting the value of Nucor's product diversification were record earning performances from our bar, plate, and structural steel mill groups for the first nine months of 2008. And I strongly agree with the point made earlier by Ham Lott. Our steel mills always highly value the opportunity to earn business from Nucor's steel products divisions, particularly during economic downturns.

Finally, I had the privilege to spend some time last week out on the shop floor at one of our steel mills. As always, I was impressed and pumped up by the power of the Nucor culture. Our team is focused and eager to leverage our strengths to take full advantage of whatever opportunities the market may bring to us in the days ahead. They were confident that we would come out of this downcycle stronger than we entered it, just as we have done in the past. Dan?

Thank you, John. At this time, I would like to take questions.

(OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS) We'll take our first question today from Kuni Chen of Banc of America Securities.

Hi, good afternoon, everybody.

Good afternoon.

I guess just to start off, on the operational fronts, I know you're not giving a lot of color on what's going on in the fourth quarter, but if you look -- if you just look at the way things are running here in October, can you give us some view on utilization rates across the sheet, bar, and structural mills?

Well, we don't break down our utilization rates by product. And we usually only talk about our utilization rates in the past tense. And in that regard, in the third quarter, we ran our operations, I think it was in the neighborhood of 80%. Is that correct, John?

About 80%.

And we'll let everybody know what we run come the next conference call for the fourth quarter.

Okay, and then on the scrap side of the equation, one of your industry peers has seen basically break-even scrap profits here in September and October. Is that a similar experience that you're seeing at DJJ?

Here again, we don't separate out the profitability by that particular business group. I can tell you that the DJJ profitability up to this point and we believe going forward has been a grand slam homerun. It's been extremely profitable, far beyond what we had anticipated, and when you go through any period of transition, there's always a catch-up phase. So to comment on where things might be at this point when you're in a transition in pricing, it wouldn't be appropriate. But certainly as we focus on any 6 to 12-month period, that organization is now part of Nucor, will continue to be very profitable.

Okay, great. And one last question, if I may. Just as far as any M&A potential goes, I mean my view is I don't see much happening unless there are sales of distressed assets. I want to know if you agree with that and in which areas of the industry you would see more of that financial distress first that you might be able to take advantage of.

Well, I don't want to get into commenting who might be distressed and who might not or what segments of the industry might be -- you can judge that for yourself based upon some of the balance sheets that may or may not be out there. In general, I think most of the steel players that are out there and our customers, service centers, fabricators, have been in a very profitable trend the last five years and the -- I think what might either hinder or accelerate any opportunities for mergers and acquisitions will be how people -- what kind of clarity businesses and industries get over the remainder of this year as to what the hell's going on in the financial world. I think probably everybody has just stopped trying to figure it out and if you've got it figured out, please feel free to share it with the other 360 million of us.

Okay. Great. Thanks a lot.

And we'll take our next question from Michelle Applebaum of Michelle Applebaum, Inc.

Hello, Michelle.

Hi, Dan. Okay. First question is Louisiana, exciting project. Hearing some flack in the marketplace about people expecting you to announce cancellations. Can you just -- I mean I know perhaps the opportunities to acquire might have improved, but can you give me your thoughts on that?

Well, first off, we have a very strong cash flow position and we don't see that changing going forward. Secondly, we have a very sound balance sheet. Our ability to borrow in addition to the fact that we have $1.6 billion in cash on hand and that should be growing doesn't necessarily follow that we won't be looking to continue to focus on our long-term projects. We may put -- in some cases temporarily as we close on things that we try to sort out what's going on out there in the world, but in respect to this particular project, it is one of the numerous parallel paths that we're following -- multiple paths for growth and we view this as a long-term project. It's not due to start up until probably 2011, maybe late 2010. We still haven't got the permitting complete yet, although it's moving along very nicely. We still haven't gotten the actual incentives passed in the state of Louisiana to have a chance to go in there, although it has not been -- it just hasn't been voted on yet, although the governor said it wouldn't be an issue. And we haven't gotten our board to give final approval for this, because that approval is pending incentives and the permitting either in Louisiana or elsewhere in the world. We are actively looking at another site in South America.

So if you think about Nucor's long-term focus, people should not expect us just to walk away from a project that's two to three years down the road and has long-term implications for the success of the company at a particular flat roll business and our growth opportunities in front of us. So there has been no such announcement made. There is no such announcement contemplated. But as usual, if anything can change over time depending on what opportunities pop up, and we'll take advantage and we reserve the right to be opportunistic at any given point in time.

Okay. So parallel pass sounds like a great idea. My next question for you is if you had to rate -- and I asked Dave Hannah this and he's a customer of yours. If you had to raise your stock price on a performance on a scale of 0 to 10 where 10 is terrific, and your business sense of the environment on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10's terrific, how would you rate those two?

Well, first of all, let me congratulate Dave and Greg and their entire team for having a very, very strong record performance. They are a great customer of ours and we're very happy to see them being so successful. It's a good sign for the industry overall. And as far as rating our stock performance, can we use negative numbers?

That's exactly what Dave said. No. It's an answer though.

It's obviously something that's extremely disappointing to all of us, because we've had consecutive first, second, and third quarter record earnings. What's going on in the stock market really has nothing to do with the performance of companies like Nucor. That's unfortunate, but that's a short-term issue. Long-term, Nucor stock and shareholders are going to do very well. As far as current business conditions go, we never look at just one specific short-term point. I mean we're at this point right now where we will end up 2008 with a record performance. And so if I take it from that standpoint, business overall has been a 10 up to this point in time. And going forward through the fourth quarter, we haven't issued any guidance because of the lack of visibility that's out there and what the heck is going on, the credit flows -- these are big issues for our customers and our customers' customer and the American consumer, and the state governments and the federal government. A lot has to be shaken out yet. So if I had to take a look at how I see things going in the next 12 months, I would say it's probably going to be a 7 or 8.

That's exactly what Dave said. Okay. That must mean you're right. One more question.

Well, I value Dave's thinking very much. I'm pleased that I'm in his company.

Me, too. Okay. My other question is '97 to '98, Asian financial crisis happened in September. Disarray in the market in November -- I mean in October came after. Imports went up in October and then from November to April, we had a relatively stable market in the United States. Imports dropped in the first four months of that period because buyers were so afraid to buy imports forward that prices would drop when they got here. And I bounced this off of them as well, and there's a lot of similarities right now. Buyers are talking about huge price declines and they are all saying they are not buying imports, though, because they are afraid prices will be worse by the time the stuff gets here because they lock in those prices. So in that environment, though, the mills were raising prices. In this environment, you're cutting prices. Do you think that we have a chance then to see a similar soft landing as we could have if we hadn't raised prices in '98?

Boy, that was a mouthful.

I'm sorry.

Let me -- just give me a second.

Just taking up all my time.

Let me gather my thoughts. First off, there are so many unknowns out there. As I said in my prepared remarks, the actions of the governments around the world, assuming that they do have the desired effect, and I believe they will, of getting credit flowing again up and down the chain and from bank to bank and from bank to consumer, whether they be business, consumer, or individual -- that will do nothing but to support our long-term view of increasing steel demand globally and steel consumption globally. And together with what I believe will be strong attempts on whatever administration takes over next to stimulate job growth and to stimulate generation of jobs, we'll act to create a stronger demand for steel in particular as we go forward, and get back on the track that we've seen for the last five years.

Originally we looked at what was going on today as just a short-term seasonal situation being impacted by some of the more steel consuming areas of the world being on -- out of business basically for six months or more or for holy days in the Middle East. And nobody forecast this financial crisis actually hitting at this time, although some people did talk about several years ago as being a possibility. So our view of the future is more complicated than just answering a question about what you're saying what happened back then. I can tell you this, we've all gotten a lot smarter about what took place back then. We've all learned some pretty hard lessons. We also went to great lengths to get our government to respond to the dumping that was taking place in gross violation of global and domestic trading laws, and I would be foolhardy to think for the world to start dumping their products in the United States when we are one of the lowest cost places to make steel in the world -- China being one of the highest cost places. The action by our government and by the industry will be swift and will be effective. That together with the fact that scrap prices, raw material prices, certainly for the many mills have come down very strongly gives us a lot of latitude to deal with whatever threat of imports that might be out there as they develop through foreign fighting programs and what have you.

Our goal is to maintain a profitable business and as highly profitable as possible, but we have the tools in our arsenal to deal with a potential of an excess supply created by dumps in illegal trading activities that some companies and trading companies might try to perpetrate. So I think we've all learned a hard lesson and we're all proactive in the way that we're looking at what's going on out there in the world. I think you also have a lot more global cross fertilization of companies, where companies internationally have operations all over the world, and I think that aids in preventing a lot of the dumping that we saw back in the mid to late '90s, where we had to go and get the [201] and also had to go out and find individual cases. I think there's a lot of things that work in our favor right now for having a stronger, more profitable market going forward, even in through the soft periods and to keeping an industry where it's not only had record highs in the top of the cycle, but also have record highs in the bottom of the cycle.

Okay. Well, thank you for all of this and you're my top pick and you make me proud. Thank you.

Thank you, Michelle. Next question, please.

Yes, sir. We'll take our next question from Timna Tanners of UBS.

Hi, good afternoon.

Hello, Timna.

Hi. Wanted to ask if you could talk a little bit about lead times and end markets just a little bit more specifics about what you're seeing?

Lead times on our rolling schedules or -- I'm not sure -- ?

I didn't know if you would break it out by product. That would be optimal. If you could talk about lead times for sheet, beam, bar, plate, et cetera?

Well, things really haven't changed a whole lot from where they have been. The plate and the beam markets are still very solid. Don't mistake our price drop of $80 a ton as a sign of weakness. And there has been a little bit more of an issue on a bar side. I think that's mostly been driven by A, the uncertainty out there, and B, by the fact that scrap has fallen so dramatically that customers have just put off buying anything more than they absolutely need and working down their inventories out of fear of the unknown. They have already been hard hit with respect to the housing industry and the automotive industry, flatrolled, continues to have its issues because of both of those segments being down and because of the, what we believe was a temporary impact of the seasonal slowdown, which we believe is now going to be going the other way if it hadn't been for the financial crisis. So as far as business goes, plate and beam, business as usual. Sheet, unfortunately, business as usual. And bars, still very profitable, very strong, and we expect to see people's inventories go the other way here in the not too distant future when the uncertainty of the financial crisis begins to dissipate, which we think it will.

Okay, and wanted to ask if -- I guess my other question would be on the dividend policy. It's great to hear the update about how you're thinking about using cash and flexibility there. But with regard to the dividend policy at the end of this 2007 looking backward for 2007 performance, you lowered the special dividend. Can you give us a little bit more parameters about how you think about the special dividend, please?

Well, I'm sorry. Someone was trying to talk to me across the room here and distracted me. Our special dividend all along, go back to our original announcement of it, has been focused on the performance and rewarding our shareholders for strong performance. We stated at that time that that special dividend would stay in place as long as our earnings continued to grow. The one year where they went down, we did reduce it, as you stated. And we also reserve the right to temporarily stop special dividends in the event that the economy got significantly more difficult or if we had some very unusual and positive opportunities for use of cash that would bring greater value to our shareholders through acquisition opportunities. So the special dividend has been a good thing and I know a lot of our shareholders have valued it. As you know, we increased our base dividend significantly to where it's now at $0.32 a quarter, $1.28 a year. I think it's paying almost like 5% at today's stock prices. But that special dividend has been billed all along as not guaranteed. That's why it's not in the base. And it could change depending upon cash availability, and cash availability can change based upon difficult economic times or opportunities to grow our business through large acquisitions.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you very much.

And we'll take our next question from David Gagliano of Credit Suisse.

Thanks very much.

Good afternoon, Dave.

Good afternoon. How are you?

Fine, thank you.

I guess that's a rhetorical question. I want to take a quick stab at the fourth quarter, given that we're a couple weeks into it. Just a frame it, sheet and bar volumes down 15% to 22% sequentially in Q3. Since the end of Q3, obviously we've had issues with demand and of course we're coming into the holiday season. So my question is based on what you are seeing and hearing from your customers today, should we expect the sequential percentage decline in sheet and bar volumes to be more or less significant in Q4?

Let me try this again. I appreciate why you're asking the question. I know you'll appreciate my answer. If we had the visibility to answer your question, we would have given you guidance and definitive guidance. We certainly would have at least given you qualitative guidance. Things have changed. Things are right now on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis, not a month-to-month basis the way they were through most of the third quarter. So I -- it's entirely possible that they could stay at those levels. Entirely possible that order entry could increase in November and December to where we're running at rates more similar to the full third quarter rates that I mentioned at running at just a little over 80% of planned, normally planned operating time. We just don't have the clarity and I defy anybody to honestly speak with clarity about what's going to happen over the next two months.

And so I guess order entry, is it reasonable to assume order entries are in the last two weeks -- ?

Reasonable to assume we haven't said anything about where our order entries are.

Okay. Okay. Switching gears, if scrap stays where it is for the rest of the quarter, can we just get a sense what the LIFO impact would be in Q4? Is that related to the previous answer or can we at least get a sense in terms of the charge and benefit and things like that?

A lot depends on quantity in the inventory, quantities.

The LIFO count, as Terry mentioned, depends on two things. The value of the inventory and the volume of the inventory. And a lot of that will depend on how things proceed through the quarter. And certainly we have a very large LIFO charge on the books and at some point in time, that charge will get reversed. Whether it happens this quarter or next quarter, we really don't know until we get to the end of the quarter. I wish I could give you a better answer than that, but this metallurgical engineer and now CEO can't seem to get a better handle on that. Haven't heard a better answer from the financial folks.

That's okay. I appreciate it. Thanks very much.

Sure.

And we'll take our next question from Wayne Cooperman with Cobalt Capital.

Hey, guys.

Good afternoon.

How are you?

Doing good.

Just trying to understand, scrap prices have plummeted, so you're -- your cost structure's just getting better and better versus everyone else.

Exactly.

Are you guys going to reduce production or are you just going to take that cost advantage and let everybody else who is in a worse shape cut production and you guys will just sit there and make your $100 to $200 a ton, like usual?

Well, first off, as scrap prices come down being our single largest cost component by far, the opportunity for margin expansion is tremendous. And what that allows us to do is to make sure that we are competitive both with imports and with domestic competition. And we have always worked to maximize our profitability through whatever business conditions we have, we'll continue to do that. There comes a point where dropping prices for the sake of dropping prices doesn't necessarily bring in additional volume. When people are frozen in place because of the uncertainty created by this financial mess that's out there, one that even the greatest minds in Washington and on Wall Street are still trying to sort out, as well as in the banking community around the world, people are in a wait and see mode. They are ordering hand to mouth, not because business isn't there, just because they are not going to get caught short with a lot of excess inventory on the ground and they run very lean until they get better clarity. And so just dropping prices for the sake of dropping prices doesn't necessarily bring in more volumes. Where we pay particular attention as to what's going on with respect to the imports and we will reserve the right to be competitive against [in part] offers so that they stay where they need to be somewhere else.

Okay, thanks.

And we'll take our next question from Michael Gambardella with JPMorgan.

Hi, Michael.

Hey, Dan. How are you?

Good.

A little bit longer-term question. Let's just assume that this credit mess gets straightened out and I know the credit crunch that we have globally now is doing all kinds of weird things. People can't get working capital lines. People can't get letters of credit, so there's all kinds of weird things going on. But let's just assume that works itself out in the next, I don't know, three to six months, whatever. With your stockpile of cash sitting there right now today and the prospects of your cash flow going up as you bring down working capital, would you opt to be more opportunistic and take off some acquisitions right now at these extremely distressed stock prices? Your stock price is obviously very distressed, but you're not the only one out there. Everyone's got a distressed stock price. The only thing is you have the most cash. I mean I can't imagine -- I would imagine there is incredibly accretive deals out there for you right now. Why wait for them, the stock prices to jump six to nine months from now when you're looking back at the credit crisis?

Well, short of giving you specifics and timing and dates of when these acquisitions will take place, Michael, actually that's tongue in cheek. As I mentioned during my prepared remarks, the opportunities in front of us are greater today and they were strong before, and there's opportunities in front of us that we didn't see or wouldn't have been there a few short months ago and even weeks ago. So we are -- we recognize our financial strength. We recognize that we are in very good position to do a lot of things and we will do whatever we do in the typical Nucor, conservative, done over [pay] fashion. And I don't disagree with you that everybody's stock prices are pretty well beat to death and I believe the future is bright for a lot of the stocks that are out there, not only in our space, but in other spaces.

As to whether or not we will take advantage of the current situation, it's like anything else. First off, we don't do hostile deals unless somebody does something to warrant that, and won't go into the details of that, but nobody likes sand kicked in their face. But so it would have to be a deal that people on both sides would be interested in doing, and we're in a position to be able to do a lot of things and it's probably not a secret, as you all know. And so we're examining a lot of opportunities. Whether we execute now or three months from now or six months from now, I think we would like to see a little bit more clarity and see some of the things that are being done prove to be corrective before we make any big moves. But certainly those opportunities will be there for us and I believe they will be there for some period of time, even if there's some stock appreciation. That won't make the opportunities less desirable. And so -- I don't know how else to answer that. I apologize.

No, that's great. One last part of that, with the abrupt fall in the stock prices here in the US, are you a little bit more focused now on acquisitions in the US than overseas? I mean since they have more synergies with your operations?

In general, I think the answer is probably yes there. Just because the things that weren't apparent six months ago are apparent as potential opportunities today. There's still opportunities for us overseas and as you know, we're still working on the [Signor] work joint venture and that's our -- again, would be the preferred way that we do grow is through joint ventures internationally. So in general, acquisitions -- yes, we're always more comfortable with acquisitions here and certainly there are more opportunities for that today, both upstream and downstream and in the steel-making space and we will keep our options open.

All right, Dan. Thanks a lot, and good luck to you.

Thank you.

And we'll take our next question from Sal Tharani with Goldman Sachs.

Good afternoon, Dan.

Good afternoon, Sal.

Dan, can you give us some color on what kind of volume did flow through from the different acquisition this quarter?

Mr. Stratman, would you like to cover that ground?

Sure, would be happy to, Sal. The transition at Duferdofin Nucor has gone very well. We have two of our folks working in Europe now, working actively with the operation. We've been very participatory over the last quarter in the planning and execution of their strategies. In the third quarter, the Duferdofin operation was neutral to our earnings situation because purchase accounting adjustments were handled there, and as we look forward, we continue to see positive results coming from Italy and look forward to the fourth quarter being accretive to earnings.

And what kind of volume was involved that you got in there?

Are you talking about tonnage volume?

Yes.

Yeah, they were definitely on par with what we assumed as we did our due diligence. They shipped -- they produced nearly 900,000 to 1 million tons a year and that is the kind of volumes we saw in the quarter.

So we should assume similar volumes for modeling purposes?

I would say the fourth quarter looks positive. I would say that in Europe, they have seen a little bit of destocking activity at the service center level, so you may see a little bit lower operating volumes because of that destocking, but the demand structure over there still appears to be supportive of that kind of number.

Great. Dan, can you give us some color on your decision to open the rebar mill in Kingman? What prompted -- what do you think the landscape of demand is and particularly there is another mill being built, rebar in Arizona also. How do you see the competitive landscape over there?

Certainly our -- the facts for our mill in Kingman are going to be that it will be the most competitive, lowest cost rebar operation in the country, and particularly when you consider how much money in total we'll have involved in the project. One of the things about the Kingman project is product type, and I'll let Mike Parrish give you some flavor for that and why that's of interest to us. Mike?

Thanks, Dan. Yeah, we're adding actually new products in Kingman for us in the west. It would be a coil rebar and rod with the possibilities of going more downstream with wire and wire mesh. So we will be doing some straight rebar, but with the coil products, that's the opportunity for us there. And right now we still have plans in place to continue the process of starting that up. And like Dan says, going to have very low capital costs and low operational costs so we can flex the tonnage up and down as it fits the market conditions.

And last question on scrap, what volume are you carrying out? Is it more than usual, less than usual?

Yes.

Both?

The answer is yes, depending upon market conditions and production rates and what have you. We're probably a little richer in scrap than we would like to be, but that's not unusual. When you go through a rapid transition in the market like we have on some products over the last month, but that will get worked out before the end of the year.

Okay. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Now, before the next question, I just want to make one clarification. I mentioned our utilization last -- for 2008 throughout end of third quarter was 80%. It was actually 86.5%. I was corrected over here by that, so just wanted to make sure you had the right information. Next question, please.

Thank you, sir. We'll go next to Bob Richard of Longbow Research.

Good afternoon, and thanks for taking our call.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Can you give us some color on the export markets, Dan? I presume that activity slowed up somewhat. Is there still available business there?

There's no doubt that it slowed up because the entire world is been shaken to its foundations here over the last month or so. You saw where the Chinese upticked their exports while they were going through their Olympic outage and that certainly made things more competitive internationally. And we have been exporting at a very heavy rate up to the last month or so. There are still export opportunities out there. We are in the process of executing on several export opportunities. I'll let John Ferriola provide additional color.

Yes, to date, we've exported about 1.7 million tons and we do have business going forward into the fourth quarter, and we're continuing to work on new opportunities in the fourth quarter. Of the 1.7 million tons, about 1 million tons of that was exported to the NAFTA countries, and the remaining overseas.

Great. I appreciate that. And Mike, one quick follow-up, with prime scrap so available right now, do you have to import pig iron?

We don't have to import pig iron. Typically we have a certain percentage we use in our mix regardless of the availability of prime scrap. It has to do with issues of quality and productivity and at present times, we are -- we have no issues with respect to our pig iron situation being where we would have to use more prime scrap as opposed to pig iron. But -- so it's not a question of do we need to import. That was what your question was. We're in a steady state situation right now. Typically you have to order your pig iron three to six months ahead of time, and so there's things coming in, prices internationally for pig iron have dropped off dramatically, just like they have for prime grades, so it still makes sense to use it as a part of your mix, depending on the type of steels you're trying to make, particularly in the flatrolled area.

Okay. Thanks for that color, and great quarter.

Thank you very much.

And we'll take our next question from Mark Parr with KeyBanc.

Hi, good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mark.

Thanks for all the color and the good answers to the questions. I had just one additional question. I believe that you -- if I'm not mistaken, you announced base price increases for November on merchant bar -- no, I mean on rebar and structurals and rolled base prices on merchant bar. At least that's what the trade presses reported.

For November?

Yes, I think it's -- prices based on the October buy, I guess that would be in effect for November.

On rebar, I don't think we changed base price. We actually went down to full drop in the scrap surcharge on shredded and that went into effect immediately the 1st of November. On merchants, we went down $80.

Okay.

That I think was effective immediately. On beams and plate, we went down $80. In one case, that is effective November 1st and another case, it's immediate.

Okay.

And of course contract pricing on sheet, we went down the full amount of the busheling move for contracts and spot is spot. So that just depends on the negotiations with the customer.

Okay. In the third quarter, can you give some color on the mix in the flatrolled side between spot and contract business?

Let me just -- I don't think I answered your question all the way. Base price as a result of everything I said, base price on rebar didn't change. Transaction price came down.

Okay.

Base price on plate and beams actually went up.

Went up $50, okay.

Yes, and -- what am I missing? And went up on merchants $50.

Yes, okay.

Okay?

Yes.

What was your other question, Mark?

Other question was on mix, on the flatrolled side, the mix between contract and spot business in the third quarter.

John?

Yes, contract business in the third quarter was about 40%, roughly 40%, just a hair under 40%, 38% to be exact.

Is that -- would you expect that mix -- well, you really don't know what's going to happen in the fourth quarter, so I can't even ask the question.

Well, I can comment to say that we do have our contracts expand out. Basically they are annual contracts. So we'll have about 38% to 40% in the fourth quarter [on sheet] is already under contract, so it will be about 40%.

Keep in mind, Mark, that each contract is written so there's a plus or minus volume window.

Right.

So if they need more steel, they can go over by X amount, and if they need less steel, they can reduce their actual committed take times by the same percent.

Okay.

That will vary by contract.

That's helpful. Congratulations on the great results and good luck on the fourth quarter.

Thank you, Mark. Our team's doing a great job.

And we'll take our next question from Sanil Daptardar of Sentinel Asset Management.

Thanks. You talked about the business's day to day or week to week business. Is this more pronounced in certain segments than that -- is it possible to get color on that?

I think it's a general statement because of just the nature of the financial crisis and how everybody's looking to see how things sort themselves out. And so as I mentioned earlier, the plate and beam business continues to be strong. The bar business continues to be good. The weakest of our products is the sheet market, which is not any news. It's well publicized what's been going on there, but still very profitable. So it's a general statement overall. Everybody just stopped, stops. Some folks went through a state of shock when this financial mess just fell out of the sky on everybody, and I'm talking about economy. I'm not talking about the steel industry per se. Of course it does affect what happens in the steel industry. It does affect what our customers think about whether they should work down their inventories or hold their inventories or expand their inventories. Certainly today most everybody is taking a very hard look at their capital situation, a very hard look at what their inventory levels are, and one surefire way to generate cash in that environment is to liquidate inventories. It can only go so far. Inventories are pretty low. One thing our customers need to be careful of is when this thing turns, getting the steel that they need because it will turn everywhere and the mills will not be able to produce at a rate to fill up the inventories to where they would like without some tightness in the marketplace. So, and our customers have been in business long enough to know that, so they are watching very carefully how they handle their inventories and that's what has created the issue in the last three weeks.

And on the state and the local government side, the project that they were considering the bridges reconstruction, highway reconstruction -- those are also getting put on hold, delayed, or scrapped out?

No, not at all. In fact, we've seen very little cancellation on non-residential and non-residential, nonbuilding. As you know, the federal government passed an emergency $8 billion infusion into the highway trust so that project could continue to go forward at the state and local levels, as well as the federal level, national level. So we have not seen that.

Okay. If -- okay. If I may ask about the 2009 period for that year -- maybe it might be too far out probably, given the visibility, very low visibility for the fourth quarter. But if you have to take a guess how 2009 is going to be in terms of volumes, in terms of the pricing or the margins, could you give us some color as to what you're thinking in the initial stages right now?

Let me put it to you this way. If what's happened over the last month didn't happen, 2009 could be another very good year. Okay. But it did happen. The reality is it did happen and it's turned the world upside down and there's no point in commenting on the fourth quarter, let alone 2009 at this point in time. And when we're comfortable being more specific about what's going on for us because we have some better visibility, we will share it. But 2009 had the potential to be another very good year with the global consumption of steel continuing to increase, but as of right now, it's a big I don't know. I think the stock market has reflected some of that to an extreme. It's not something that we can get into forecasting.

Okay. On the recent share repurchase, I think your activity was extremely low in the third quarter. How much share -- how many shares are still remaining on the past authorization?

Somewhere around 30 million. As you know, we got a lot of interest in us buying our stock back on the last conference call, and as we said at that time, with everything that we had done over the last couple of months, we didn't think it was appropriate. Thank goodness we didn't act on the suggestions that were made by four or five people to buy stock back when it was in the $60s and so our strategy on that still hasn't changed.

So you might very aggressive now with the current price, in that case?

I have no comment on how aggressive we would be or not. As I mentioned before, it's not our first priority and -- but we do recognize that that is a use for our cash if we decided to go that way.

Thanks a lot, Dan.

You're welcome.

We'll take our next question from Barry Vogel of Barry Vogel and Associates.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

Good afternoon, Mr. Vogel.

How are you all doing today?

Doing good. Sounds like you're next door.

I am. I got a couple of questions for Terry. Most of my other questions have been answered. Terry, what's your estimate for D&A this year?

Depreciation?

Yes, depreciation and amortization.

Actually you sound like you're in a tunnel, so bear with us as we repeat the question to you.

I am. Okay.

$490 million for depreciation and about $70 million for amortization.

My next question is Duferdofin -- where is it on the P&L? I didn't see any line item.

I think you're pronouncing it -- must be the echo in there -- it's Duferdofin. Only kidding. It's Duferdofin. What was your question?

Where is it on the P&L? I don't see a line item.

Well, there won't be a line item unless it's material.

But where is it? I mean isn't it the joint venture? I thought it would be equity accounting.

Right now it's in admin.

It's in where?

Admin.

It's in administration?

Admin and other. Remember, it's really small at this point.

Okay, and what were the accounting charges you talked about, what were they?

Just typical purchase accounting charges.

Okay. So when does it come out of administration and other?

When it's material.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Barry.

And we'll take our next question from Dave Martin with Deutsche Bank.

Yes, thank you. I had a couple quick follow-ups. First, coming back to the utilization rates, I think you mentioned 86.5%. Is that year to date or is that the third quarter?

That was third quarter.

Okay, and can you give us the number for September possibly?

I don't have that number. I apologize. We look at it on a quarterly basis, not a monthly basis.

Okay. I was just trying to get --

Somewhere the calculation is there, but I don't have it in front of me.

Okay, and then secondly, coming back to 2009 --

I will say, I will say this. It was -- it would have been somewhat lower in September. I just can't tell you how much.

Okay, and then secondly, I'm sure you're doing some planning for 2009 and you've talked earlier about some of your projects. Could you give us some estimates of what the range of possibilities would be for capital spending next year? I'm sure Louisiana's an important part of that, but can you give us an estimate of what CapEx spending could be with and without Louisiana, depending on when you move forward with that?

I think all of our existing projects that we've been working on in 2008, including Memphis, are complete. Correct? Am I missing something? And the iron project, a lot of it depends on whether or not the permitting goes through as to how much our spend will be next year or not. Could be several hundred million dollars. It could be nothing.

Okay, and then of the $1 billion you're spending this year, how much is growth-related?

All of it. Am I --

He means green field versus existing operations.

You mean -- well, he said growth-related.

That, he did, but I think he meant --

Memphis is growth related. Utah's growth related. Galvanizing is growth related.

Correct. Can you represent how much of the $1 billion -- ?

Nustrip is growth related, so what isn't growth related?

Well, there's a certain amount of CapEx you would be doing at your legacy assets.

Around $400 million on that. I don't have the specific number for first nine -- for what this year would be.

Okay. That's fine. Thank you.

Okay.

And we have a follow-up from Michelle Applebaum.

Hi. Okay. I didn't think I was going to get a chance. Wanted to ask you, would you give us some insight into what your operating rate was as you ended the quarter? Was that the 80%? Was that a slip?

Property rate?

Operating rate.

Oh, it was a mistake. Not a slip.

Well, sounded like it could have been a slip.

You asked a specific question. I gave you a specific answer. It was not a slip. It was a mistake and I got an elbow saying no, it's 86.5%.

Can you comment on what you ended the quarter -- ?

If it was a slip, I wouldn't have corrected myself. If it wasn't a slip, I would have not corrected myself and just let it go.

Thank you for that insight.

You're welcome.

Can you comment on the operating rate as you ended the quarter?

I just answered a question along those lines and they asked about September and I said it would have been less than the 86.5%, but I don't have the number for how much less.

Okay, and the 80% obviously wasn't a good number. Could you also give --

I can repeat myself if you like.

No, no, no. Sorry.

Okay.

Can you also give us some insight in terms of your historical perspective? You've been doing this for a while and I'm wondering if you could comment in terms of the production cuts that we've seen, both domestically, globally, what Nucor's doing, and put it into some historical context? How does this compare to other cycles?

Nucor has always governed its production and utilization based upon our order entry, so it hasn't changed really at all as far as we're concerned. The orders come in a month ahead of time and customers know what our rolling schedules are months ahead of time. They know when our outages are at the beginning of every year and we operate our plant based upon the order entry. I think most other folks do the same thing and where we've gotten into trouble in the past is when the rest of the world has shipped their whole capacity here and dumped in our market and created a mess of oversupply. And I think we will all be very well focused on keeping that from happening going forward, both through our ability to be competitive in the marketplace and also through legal needs.

Thanks.

Next question?

Thank you, sir. We'll take our next question from Debra Fine with Fine Capital Partners.

Good afternoon, Dan.

Good afternoon, Debra.

Could you comment on Chinese production cuts and comment on whether there is the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning, and whether they are permanent?

Boy, talking about in China?

In China. Where else would the Chinese production cuts be?

No, no, no, I didn't know if you were expanding your question to mean the whole world.

No, in China.

With respect to China, they themselves admitted they have 125 million tons of capacity that should be shuttered. They did that a couple of years when they were here in the United States in Washington. They have thrown out a couple other numbers since then that might be a little lower, but in general, what's happening over there needs to happen. With the market -- and I think that if the government has anything to do with it, they are doing the right thing in allowing companies to go out of business who are marginal companies who pollute, who have high energy costs, poor inefficiencies. And so I think it's the natural order of things that it has to happen in China, particularly with all of the new construction and capacity brought onstream.

But you don't know if the cuts -- you don't know if this round of cuts is any more permanent or any less permanent than they have been in the past?

Oh, I think there will be some that will more permanent.

Okay, and with regard to stopping dumping by being cost competitive. It strikes me odd that we could ever be cost competitive against people what want to dump steel here and I'm trying to understand how you think about adding capacity when people can always dump steel to the US and we can't compete against it.

Well, that's where you have to have -- when you are talking about stopping dumped steel, you have to have a two-fold strategy. And that two-fold strategy has -- the groundwork has been laid very well over the last eight years. Our government is on board with that and action will be quick and people have been found guilty of dumping before. It will be very easy for us to go through that process, much easier than it was back in '98 and '99 when we first had to go through it. And so people understand when they are dumping and they understand when there will be repercussions for the dumping. And so our ability to lower our costs maintains strong profitability and put them into that situation is an effective tool, we believe, in preventing that from happening again. But it's a combination of the two. Without the government's willingness to act, right, you're absolutely right. You can't prevent the dumping. You have a repeat of what took place in '01 and '02 and '03 with 32 steel companies going into bankruptcy. And the other thing that acts against that, as I mentioned, Debra, was the fact that the steel industry is much more developed cross border today than it was 10 years ago.

Okay, and just finally, when you were talking about the stock buyback and saying how great it was that you didn't buy at $60, were you saying at the time you knew the stock was going to go to $28 and we just weren't clued in? Or did you not think the stock was cheap at $60 at the time and do you not think the stock is cheap when it's trading at two or three times EBITDA?

No offense, Debra, but I can't believe you asked that question. You have been one of the ones that emphasize we should be buying back our stock.

Absolutely I was one.

Regardless of our strategy, regardless of what we felt was best for the shareholder capital, our comments back then were that we had better opportunities to grow our company's profits long-term in front of us and better use of that capital and that while buying stock back is an option and we've done it in the past, we would not commit to buying at that point in time and it's a good thing we didn't. No, I did not know stock was going to go down. I've only lost about $25 million of net worth, which is about 90% of my net worth. I take offense to your question and end of discussion. That is absolutely ludicrous for you to even pose that kind of question. I'm very disappointed and this call is now over.

And that does conclude today's question and answer session. Mr. DiMicco, I'll turn the call back over to you for any additional or closing remarks, sir.

I do. Again, I would like to thank our customers, our employees and the team here in Charlotte for working hard and successfully to have another record quarter. And at some point in time, ladies and gentlemen, the investment community, including those that are on this call, will focus on the strengths of individual companies and the true value they represent, and stock prices will be where they should be. And they won't be there because people wish them to be there. It will be there because that's the correct value. And the future is bright for Nucor and bright for our shareholders. Thank you all very much.

And that does conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at this time.