Alcoa shares slide on mixed quarterly numbers

Metals and materials group Alcoa unofficially kicked off US earnings season on Monday, posting mixed results after the closing bell, with commodities prices dragging down sale.

The firm reported adjusted first quarter revenue of $4.95bn, with earnings per share of seven cents. A year earlier, revenue totaled $5.82bn, while earnings per share were 28 cents.

It was a mixed result when compared to forecasts. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected Alcoa to post revenue of $5.14bn, and earnings per share of two cents.

Alcoa is expected to split into two public companies later in 2016 - an ‘upstream’ unit and a ‘value-add’ unit named Arconic.

Arconic will contain the higher-growth segments, such as rolled and engineered products, while Alcoa will retain the group’s traditional units including alumina, aluminium and bauxite.

Shares in Alcoa dipped 2% in after-hours trading on receipt of the results. They had been battered in the last 12 months, diving more than 25% as the commodities slump continued.