What happened
Friday is turning out to be another great day to own shares of United States Steel (X 1.13%). As of 12:50 p.m., shares of the steel giant were up by 9.4% after the company received a "double upgrade" from Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Terry.
So what
There's not a whole lot of detail available on why the Deutsche analyst upgraded U.S. Steel stock. About all our friends at TheFly.com have been able to come up with was that he thinks that the "stars are aligned" for metals stocks and mining stocks alike.
But the lack of detail seems to be taking a backseat in investors' minds to the sheer scale of this upgrade. Not only did Deutsche swing all the way from sell to buy on U.S. Steel shares -- it raised its price target on the stock from $4 a share to $28!
That seven-fold increase in the analyst's view of what U.S. Steel stock is worth is causing quite a stir on Wall Street.
This steel stock is red hot again. Image source: Getty Images.
Now what
Will the optimism prove justified? That may depend in part on whether the theory behind U.S. Steel's stock price rally earlier this week proves out. On Wednesday, shares of the steel giant leaped higher after the two Democratic victories in Georgia's Senate runoff elections raised hopes that a Democrat-controlled Congress might pass a big infrastructure bill this year.
Even before that, though, analysts such as GLJ Research were warming to U.S. Steel stock, citing strong demand for cars -- and therefore for high-end auto steel -- which was resulting in "acute" supply shortages and "surging" steel prices.
Pile the impacts of a major infrastructure bill on top of those trends, and the stars could be aligning for U.S. Steel, indeed.
