Steel yourselves. Three months ago, things were looking up for ArcelorMittal as demand from carmakers and the industrial machinery sector seemed to be holding up in markets outside China. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation in the second quarter spiked to $3bn, almost 60 per cent up on the first three months. The company’s rebounding flat carbon steel business in the Americas contributed more than a third of ebitda. Now the world’s biggest steelmaker, a decent proxy for global economic output, has turned cautious on the outlook for demand, warning ebitda could fall by up to 30 per cent in the next quarter. Nippon Steel and Korea’s Posco have also flagged a deteriorating outlook.
你要堅強一些！三個月前，在中國以外的市場，來自于汽車制造商和工業機械行業的需求似乎有所上升，使得阿塞洛-米塔爾(ArcelorMittal)的狀況出現好轉。在第二季度，該公司利息、稅項、折舊及攤銷前的利潤(EBITDA)增至30億美元，較一季度增長近60%，其中美洲地區碳鋼鋼板業務的復蘇貢獻了三分之一以上。如今，這家全球最大的鋼鐵制造商——全球經濟產出一個頗為準確的代言人——對需求前景的態度轉為謹慎，該公司警告稱，第三季度ebitda可能下滑至多30%。此外，新日鐵(Nippon Steel)和韓國浦項制鐵(Posco)也表示，業績前景有可能惡化。