Alcoa Posts Narrower Loss, Shares Up 5%

(RTTNews) - Shares of Alcoa Corp. (AA) gained over 5% in the after hours trading Wednesday after the largest producer of aluminum in the US reported a loss for the second quarter, which was lower than Wall Street analysts' estimates. Revenues also trumped expectations.

Pittsburgh-based Alcoa reported second-quarter net loss of $197 million or $1.06 per share, compared with last year's loss of $402 million or $2.17 per share.

Adjusted loss for the quarter were $4 million or $0.02 per share, compared with adjusted loss of $2 million or $0.01 per share last year. On average, 9 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected loss of $0.45 per share.

Sales for the quarter dropped to $2.15 billion from $2.71 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $2.11 billion.

"Despite challenging market conditions, our team has lowered production costs, increased output, maintained stable shipments, and improved our balance sheet. We continued to make progress in executing our strategic actions and 2020 programs, and we finished the quarter with a cash balance of nearly one billion dollars," President and Chief Executive Officer Roy Harvey said.

Alumina shipments rose to 2.42 million metric tons from 2.30 million metric tons last year.

Looking forward to 2020, Alcoa continues to projects bauxite shipments to range between 48.0 and 49.0 million dry metric tons. Total alumina shipments are expected to be between 13.6 and 13.7 million metric tons. Aluminum shipments are expected to be between 2.9 and 3.0 million metric tons.

AA closed Wednesday's trading at $12.69, up $0.08 or 0.63%, on the NYSE. The stock further gained $0.72 or 5.67% in the after-hours trade.