Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. (NYSE: RS), Los Angeles, CA, reported sales for the first quarter of $2.2 billion, down 17.3 percent from the first quarter of 2015. Profit for the quarter fell 9 percent to $92.2 million.
"Importantly, for the first time in well over a year, we've begun to experience rising metals pricing for all carbon steel products as well as stainless steel flat-rolled products," said Gregg Mollins, president and CEO. "We believe this pricing improvement, which accelerated toward the end of the first quarter, is mainly a result of both the recent trade case filings by U.S. steel producers and increasing scrap costs, which contributed to our expanded gross profit margins in the first quarter of 2016."
