Nucor’s Latest Dividend: What Steel’s Cycles Mean for Your Income

Core Viewpoint - Nucor Corporation is facing significant cash flow challenges despite maintaining a long-standing dividend payout, raising concerns about the sustainability of its dividend growth trajectory [2][5]. Dividend Payment Overview - Nucor recently paid a quarterly dividend of $0.56 per share, reflecting a 1.82% increase from the previous quarter's $0.55 [3]. - For the full year 2025, the total dividend distribution was $2.21 per share, a modest increase of 1.84% from $2.17 in 2024, indicating a slowdown compared to the 4.83% growth seen between 2023 and 2024 [3]. Cash Flow Analysis - In fiscal 2025, Nucor generated $3.23 billion in operating cash flow, while capital expenditures reached $3.42 billion, resulting in negative free cash flow of $188 million, marking the first instance of negative free cash flow in the available dataset [5][9]. - This represents a significant decline from fiscal 2023, where Nucor produced $4.90 billion in free cash flow, and operating cash flow has decreased by 68% from its peak of $10.07 billion in fiscal 2022 [6][9]. Dividend Sustainability Concerns - Despite the cash flow issues, Nucor paid out $512 million in dividends in 2025, necessitating the use of its balance sheet to support both dividend payments and capital expenditures [7][9]. - The dividend payout now accounts for 25.1% of net income, a sharp increase from just 5.3% during the profitable fiscal year 2022 [7]. Financial Performance - Nucor's net income fell to $2.04 billion in fiscal 2025, a decline of 12.1% from 2024 and a staggering 75% drop from $8.08 billion in fiscal 2022 [14].