GGB: Summary for GERDAU SA ADS - Yahoo! Finance

GGB: Summary for GERDAU SA ADS - Yahoo! Finance
New 52 Week high and a mention on Briefing.com today Fri 2/25 @

2:58PM Gerdau -- New High Profile (GGB) 18.70 -0.01: Steel stocks are up again today. A name in the group that has underperformed is Gerdau, the largest steel producer in Brazil, which is near a new 52-week high. Most in the US have not heard of them, but this is a $5.6 bln market cap company. Some foreign steel stocks have been bid higher (PKX and SIM to name a couple), but Gerdau has underperformed. The co recently reported Q4 profit up 63% yoy... An interesting kicker is the co's exposure to iron ore. The co said, according to Reuters, that it planned to start tapping one of three Brazilian iron ore deposits it owned in 2006, which holds some 500 mln tons of iron ore. Any regular reader of InPlay knows we have been covering the surge in iron ore prices (RIO recently got a 71% price increase with Nippon Steel). Perhaps GGB can save a "ton" of money by mining their own mines. Also, the stock has done little. Most names have surged, but GGB is up a measly 12% since mid-August. Last month, we profiled fellow Brazilian steelmaker, Comp Siderurgica (SID 25.86 +0.25) on this page at $20.32 for a 27% move in one month. Also, Mexican steel producer Grupo Simec (SIM 7.60 -0.02) is up 79% from our November profile. Mkt cap $5.6 bln, float 133 mln, avg vol 519K.