Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) snapped a five-day losing streak on Monday, surging 16.34 percent to close at $14.10 after reporting its strongest quarterly performance in three years, returning to profitability and fueling hopes of a sustained recovery this year.
In an updated report, the steelmaker said it swung to a net income attributable to shareholders of $152 million from a net loss attributable to shareholders of $251 million in the third quarter last year.
Revenues surged by 18 percent to $5.612 billion from $4.734 billion year-on-year, on the back of higher average selling prices, sales volumes, and unit costs.
Adjusted EBITDA totaled $612 million—its strongest by far—versus $143 million in the same period in 2025.
Photo by Mizuno K on pexels
Road to Recovery
The third-quarter performance helped slash Cleveland-Cliffs’ nine-month attributable net loss by 81 percent to just $230 million from $1.235 billion in the comparable period last year.
Revenues also totaled $15.76 billion, marking a 10-percent jump from 14.3 billion year-on-year.
READ NEXT: Silence Therapeutics (SLN) Gets 130% Premium Offer From Merck, Shares Surge Over 100%
“The trade environment continues to support a healthy American steel industry. Imports remain well below historical levels, lead times are extended, and our customers increasingly recognize the value of a reliable domestic supply chain,” Chairman and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said.
“As a result, our 2027 outlook has improved materially since our last earnings call, as several of the initiatives we identified as drivers of future earnings growth are developing more favorably than originally expected,” he noted.
Rosy Q4
Encouraged by the results, the company signaled it will clock the year with a strong finish.
Based on new contracts already signed, Cleveland-Cliffs is targeting full-year adjusted EBITDA to exceed $4 billion, compared with only $37 million last year.
Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA alone is expected at $715 million, to be helped by increased pricing, partially offset by seasonality, increased maintenance outages, input costs and incentive compensation accruals.
“We expect fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA to further increase, even withtypical fourth-quarter seasonality and planned maintenance outages,” Goncalves noted.
“We continued to reduce debt in Q3 and, with amplified free cash flow in Q4 and property sale proceeds, we expect a major debt reduction in the fourth quarter. With all that, we remain on track to reach our leverage target of under 2.5x net debt to EBITDA by the middle of next year,” he added.
Hedge Funds Bullish
Institutional investors appeared to be bullish about Cleveland-Cliffs, as evidenced by the jump in their combined holdings as of the latest quarterly hedge fund filings.
Data from Insider Monkey showed that 53 hedge funds held positions in the stock as of the second quarter of the year, unchanged from the quarter earlier.
However, their collective holdings soared by 13 percent to $1.345 billion from $1.191 billion, signaling that existing investors were growing more confident in the steelmaker’s prospects.
While we acknowledge the risk and potential of CLF as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CLF and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 33 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and Cathie Wood 2026 Portfolio: 10 Best Stocks to Buy.
Hedge Fund Resource Center