Steel Dynamics, Inc.

Steel Dynamics spent $5 billion on a second earnings engine, and it is starting to show: steel profit roughly tripled off last year's trough while aluminum losses shrank each quarter. Whether that mill finally hits its ramp is the whole story now. How much of the aluminum ramp already has customer orders behind it?

• Steel, not aluminum, is what paid for the whole build.

  Record shipments four quarters running met value-added spreads back above $230 a ton, lifting steel operating income from $310 million in Q4 FY2025 to over $1 billion in Q3 FY2026. That is what absorbed the aluminum startup losses.

• The aluminum ramp arrives late every quarter, just by less each time.

  The aluminum operating loss has halved twice over, to $26 million in Q3 FY2026, but the 90%-of-capacity exit target has now outlived two stumbles. October's hot mill is at 75%, so the promise keeps moving faster than the output does. How much of the 2027 aluminum ramp relies on automotive qualification?

• Management will not raise the aluminum number, even at today's prices.

  Through-cycle aluminum EBITDA is still pitched at $650 million to $700 million, and management concedes today's spreads are "considerably higher" than that assumes. They want the last cold mill and annealing line dialled in first. How much higher would aluminum profit be at today's metal spreads?