TLDR
- Wells Fargo upgraded Cleveland-Cliffs to Overweight from Equal Weight, raising its price target to $14 from $12.
- CLF stock rose about 1% to trade near $12.30 on Tuesday.
- Analyst Timna Tanners expects second-half 2026 and 2027 EBITDA to beat Wall Street estimates.
- Hot rolled coil steel prices have climbed from roughly $900 to $1,300 per ton this year.
- Only 25% of analysts rate CLF a Buy, well below the S&P 500 average of 55-60%.
Cleveland-Cliffs stock climbed about 1% to $12.30 on Tuesday after Wells Fargo upgraded the steelmaker. Analyst Timna Tanners moved her rating to Overweight from Equal Weight and lifted her price target to $14 from $12.
Tanners believes the company’s earnings could “materially exceed” current Wall Street forecasts. She points to second-half 2026 and 2027 EBITDA as the periods where the upside could show up.
Wall Street currently expects about $1.3 billion in combined Q2 and Q3 EBITDA this year. For 2027, the consensus sits near $2.3 billion.
For context, Cliffs posted $5.3 billion in EBITDA back in 2021, its best year on record. Steel prices back then peaked around $1,900 per ton.
Steel Prices Are Climbing Again
Benchmark steel prices started 2026 around $900 per ton. They’ve since risen to about $1,300 per ton, giving the company more room to earn.
Wells Fargo said hot rolled coil lead times are near pandemic-era highs. Buyers are having trouble sourcing material fast enough.
U.S. landed hot rolled coil prices in Houston have jumped about $235 per ton since the Iran conflict began. Southeast Asia prices, often used as a global benchmark, only rose $35 per ton in that same stretch.
Tanners called this a tactical call rather than a long-term bet. She thinks the steel pricing cycle is close to peaking, but Cleveland-Cliffs hasn’t caught up to the benefits yet.
A Rocky Setup Ahead of New Competition
CLF shares traded as low as $11 last week. That’s down about 5% from before President Trump backed a new steel plant project in Iowa.
Mesabi Metallics is planning a $15 billion fully integrated steel facility there. Once running, it could churn out eight or nine million tons of finished steel a year.
That would be a real chunk of the U.S. market, which currently produces 80 to 90 million tons annually and imports another 20 to 25 million tons. New supply like this could either replace imports or crowd out existing producers.
The plant is still years away from completion, though. For now, Cliffs trades on near-term EBITDA, not future competition.
Only 25% of analysts covering Cliffs currently rate it a Buy. For comparison, the typical S&P 500 stock has a Buy ratio closer to 55-60%.
That number is moving in the right direction, though. Back in summer, just two analysts had a Buy rating on the stock. Now four do.
The average price target across analysts sits around $13, up from about $12 a year ago.
Cleveland-Cliffs is set to report earnings in 13 days. The company’s last quarter showed a $5.2 billion revenue figure, matching estimates, alongside a per-share loss of $0.20, just shy of the expected $0.19 loss.
Wells Fargo also flagged costs as the top concern raised by management teams last quarter. The firm still prefers aluminum stocks and copper producer Freeport-McMoRan over steel as longer-term sector picks.
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