Jefferies downgrades U.S. Steel to Hold on guidance risk. Jefferies analyst Seth Rosenfeld downgraded U.S. Steel to Hold from Buy and lowered his price target for the shares to $24 from $38. "Poor" Q4 earnings and Q1 guides will begin to reflect the extent of recent steel margin weakness, Rosenfeld tells investors in a research note. The analyst, while remaining "constructive" on the broader Steel sector, downgraded U.S. Steel to reflect guidance risk and "increasingly challenged" long-term prospects. With both U.S. and European flat steel margins drifting lower, drivers for a "meaningful recovery" at the company are "hard to identify," says the analyst. As such, he believes U.S. Steel's 2019 EBITDA guidance risks disappointing consensus expectations. Rosenfeld's top picks in the U.S. are Nucor (NUE), Commercial Metals (CMC), Steel Dynamics (STLD), Reliance Steel (RS) and Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF).
