Alcoa reports

Alcoa (ticker:AA), the world’s largest aluminum company reported its results last night. The results were better than expected, however, it would be hard to say that they were “good.” Probably the most important piece of news from Alcoa was from its CEO’s comments. He stated that he was seeing some signs of strengthening in aluminum prices. He also said that some markets, including the automobile industry, were showing some resurgence. The automotive industry is one of the aluminum industries biggest customers.

The loss of $454 million in the quarter was driven by a big drop in sales of around 42%! The silver lining (pun intended) is that Alcoa is a commodities good maker and in recessions these kinds of manufacturers are very vulnerable.

I’ll keep watching the wires folks!

Jason