Earnings season in the U.S. represents the quarterly time of year when publicly traded companies publish their corporate earnings.  Traditionally, Alcoa, Inc. (Ticker: AA) is the first company in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to report earnings and represents the start of earnings season in the U.S.   But things have now changed!  Alcoa has been removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average as of September 2013.   Until we see the full impact of this change, we will continue to reference when Alcoa reports earnings as the beginning of the new earnings reporting cycle.

Alcoa has had a rough time over the last 5 years.  For over a decade, the share price in the company ranged from approx. $27 to $44 / share.

Now the shares are $8.32/share after falling steadily from early 2011 highs of approx. $19/share.  One of the key drivers in the falling price
of Alcoa shares is the falling price of the Aluminum ingot price, resulting from supply exceeding demand.

Alcoa has taken these two primary steps to improve the situation = aggressively cut smelting capacity and increased its focus on manufacturing engineered end products for aluminum.

Cutting smelting capacity impacts overall supply, with the hope in balancing supply with current demand.

Developing new aluminum end-products and expanding aluminum end-markets increases demand AND decreases Alcoa’s dependence on
earnings from aluminum as a raw material.  Innovative aluminum products increase the margin of earnings on every dollar of product that
the company sells.

See how Alcoa is doing in trying to turn-around the company an see what we are seeing at Alcoa, with this video.

 

 

 

 

 

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