Episode
Cleveland-Cliffs Stock: EBITDA Tripled, Cash Flow Turned Positive — So Why We Say HOLD (CLF Q2 2026)
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- Jul 25, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 919
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Summary
Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF) Q2 2026 — Cleveland-Cliffs (CLF), the largest flat-rolled steelmaker in North America, delivered a genuine inflection quarter for Q2 2026: revenue of about $5.23B rose roughly 6% year over year, adjusted EBITDA roughly TRIPLED to about $286M — its highest in nearly two years — and free cash flow turned POSITIVE at about +$73M, the first positive FCF in two years, on steel shipments of about 4.0M net tons. It was still a GAAP loss (adjusted EPS about -$0.20, roughly in line), and the balance sheet still carries heavy debt, but the market loved the turn: the stock jumped about 17% to around $11.07 on the print. Management is now guiding toward about $3.3B in adjusted EBITDA and about $1.7B in free cash flow in 2027 — the debt-paydown bull case. Our call: HOLD. Not financial advice. Cleveland-Cliffs is the largest flat-rolled steel producer in North America — a fully integrated iron-ore-to-finished-steel operator that supplies the automotive, infrastructure, and manufacturing end markets. Q2 2026 was a real inflection: revenue of about $5.23B was up roughly 6% year over year, adjusted EBITDA roughly TRIPLED to about $286M (its best in nearly two years), and free cash flow flipped POSITIVE at about +$73M — the first positive FCF in two years — on steel shipments near 4.0M net tons. The stock jumped about 17% to around $11.07 on the print. The catch: it's still GAAP-lossmaking (adjusted EPS about -$0.20, roughly in line with estimates) and still carries a heavy debt load, so the turn has to keep compounding. Management's 2027 targets — about $3.3B adjusted EBITDA and about $1.7B free cash flow — are the bull case and the debt-paydown driver. On a normalized-earnings-power plus mid-cycle EV/EBITDA frame, our base fair value lands near $10, a hair below…