Asia Pacific Steel
V-Shaped Recovery Needed
to Keep this Rally Alive
Worst of the News Flow Behind Us, but Sustainable
Earning Recovery Still Elusive: Regional steel prices
have fallen 10% YTD, about in line with our forecast, but
they are showing signs of stabilizing as they hit cash
cost levels of US$420/t (see our April 8 note, 2009
Global Steel Cost Analysis). We maintain our full-year
price forecasts of US$450/ton for East Asian spot and
US$490/ton (Rmb3,357/ton, VAT included) for Chinese
domestic, and calculate that this is far below levels
needed to generate earnings that support current stock
prices. We are leaving our 2009-10 EPS forecasts
unchanged, which are 20% below consensus.
Inventories Are Shifting Downstream, but Still Little
Pricing Power: Steel traders inform us that orders have
picked up in the past few weeks, especially in long
products for the construction sector. However,
increased domestic production and imports are
supplying the restocking, capping any price recovery,
which is currently just Rmb100/t off the lows hit in late
March. We see pricing power being capped despite a
pickup in demand due to an oversupplied global steel
market with operating rates at just 70%.
V-shaped Earnings Recovery Discounted,
Especially at Angang: Asian Steel stocks are trading
at about 10x our estimate of normalized EPS versus a
10-year average multiple of 9x and look expensive to us
based on our forecast of a modest earnings recovery to
mid-cycle levels by 2011-12. Angang appears to be the
most expensive stock in our coverage, and we estimate
it would require a HRC steel price of over US$600/ton by
next year to justify current stock values. We reiterate our
UW rating on the shares. We would instead recommend
the Chinese cement sector as being better positioned to
capitalize on the fiscal stimulus programs.
Raising PTs on Lower COE: Whilst we are not making
any changes in our EPS forecasts, we are meaningfully
increasing our PTs, by 12-50%, to reflect changes in our
cost of equity assumptions.