Cleveland-Cliffs jumps 16% after Q3 EBITDA of $612 million beats its own guide and 2027 is seen above $4 billion

Cleveland-Cliffs shares were up about 16% late Monday morning, at $14.085 at 11:51 a.m. ET against a prior close of $12.12, after the steelmaker reported third-quarter results. Volume was about 39.5 million shares, roughly 3.7 times the 10.7 million daily average Nasdaq shows. The stock's 52-week range is $7.73 to $16.70.

The numbers in the release

In its third-quarter release, Cliffs reported GAAP net income of $165 million, or $0.26 a share, and adjusted earnings of $0.28 a share. The second quarter was a GAAP loss of $134 million, or $0.25 a share. Adjusted EBITDA was $612 million, up $326 million from $286 million in Q2 and above the $575 million the company had guided to three months earlier.

The story is price, not volume. Shipments rose only about 3% from a year ago, while the average selling price rose about 14%, from $1,032 to $1,177 a ton. On roughly 4.15 million tons, that price gap alone is worth about $600 million of quarterly revenue. Cash margin more than tripled from a year earlier.

What Cliffs is guiding to

The company expects fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA of about $715 million, roughly 17% above Q3, despite seasonality and planned maintenance outages. For 2027 it said it "would expect" adjusted EBITDA to exceed $4 billion, based on contracts already signed and prevailing index price forecasts. Four times the Q4 guide is about $2.9 billion, so the 2027 figure implies a further step up of about 40% on top of an already higher run rate.

Read the wording closely. The 2027 number is conditional on index price forecasts holding, and CEO Lourenco Goncalves tied the outlook to the trade environment, saying imports "remain well below historical levels." That is a bet that tariff protection stays in place. Cliffs also said it expects a "major debt reduction" in Q4, helped by free cash flow and property sale proceeds, and a net debt to EBITDA target under 2.5x by the middle of next year.

Stelco: a better quarter and another closure

Cliffs called Q3 Stelco's strongest quarter since Cliffs acquired it two years ago, with the Canadian hot-rolled market improving enough to make the unit a positive EBITDA contributor. In the same release it said it is "indefinitely" idling Stelco's galvanizing lines because of an oversupplied Canadian market and no sign of government action, while keeping total tonnage up by concentrating on hot-rolled. About 2,000 jobs are preserved, the company said, and the affected workers will return when conditions improve. We covered the earlier Hamilton finishing-line shutdown and the 8% drop that followed.

Who feels a $1,177 ton

Cliffs sold 34% of its steel revenue, about $1.8 billion, to distributors and converters, 28% ($1.5 billion) directly to automakers, 28% ($1.5 billion) to infrastructure and manufacturing, and 10% ($532 million) to other steel producers. The distributor channel is where the price shows up for small buyers: metal fabricators, welding and machine shops, and equipment builders buy from service centers, not from the mill. A 14% rise in a mill's average realized price tends to reach them with a lag, so a shop quoting fixed-price jobs against steel bought months ago is the one squeezed. Cliffs' own comment that lead times are extended points the same way: buyers who wait to order pay more and wait longer.

The bear case

• The $4 billion figure is an expectation, not a result, and it depends on index prices and on tariffs staying put.
• Q3 is a single strong quarter after a loss in Q2 and a gross loss in Q3 2025. The year-ago comparison is unusually easy.
• Cliffs still has debt to bring down, and it said the leverage target is for mid-2027, not now.
• Stelco is still shrinking its galvanized business, which shows how much of the benefit stops at the U.S. border.

The stock is now 16% higher on the day but about 16% below its 52-week high of $16.70.

Sources: Cleveland-Cliffs Q3 2026 results release; Nasdaq quote data for CLF at 11:51 a.m. ET, Oct. 19, 2026; Bloomberg and Investing.com coverage of the day's stock movers. Per-ton and annualized figures are our arithmetic. This is market information, not investment advice.