Shares of United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:X) are trending after initial data showed that the company’s chemical spill last week at a Portage, Indiana facility didn’t release any meaningful amount of the potentially carcinogenic chemical hexavalent chromium into Lake Michigan and an associated waterway. The EPA said: “Preliminary results of water samples collected by EPA from Burns Waterway and Lake Michigan, including Indiana American Water’s intake, on April 12, do not indicate hexavalent chromium impacts in either water body. All results were below EPA’s method detection limit of 1 part per billion.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Steel is moving forward to try and restart the idle plant that has been offline since last Tuesday, saying in a press release that it plans a ‘controlled restart of operations’. If the plant comes online, United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:X) sentiment may improve. Shares of the stock, which is considered as a potential Trump infrastructure play by many traders, are down 10.7% year-to-date.
What Does The Smart Money Sentiment Say?
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The smart money was rather bullish on United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:X) in the fourth quarter. Although the number of elite funds long the name stayed the same at 35 from Q3 to Q4, the amount held rose to $1.16 billion at the end of December, from $787.67 million at the end of September.
The Bottom Line
United States Steel Corporation (NYSE:X)’s spill doesn’t look so bad after the EPA said that initial results show that there was no significant hexavalent chromium chemical discharge into Lake Michigan. For more reading, check out ‘8 Countries That Produce The Most Steel In the World‘.
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