JPMorgan raised its Salzgitter price target by €1 and kept its Overweight rating. The call depends on higher steel prices and faster European sector EBITDA growth through 2028.
European steelmakers may have little room to surprise investors in their next quarterly reports, JPMorgan analyst Dominic O'Kane says. His case for Salzgitter instead rests on later price increases and faster earnings growth in the fourth quarter of 2026 and in 2027, Börsen-Zeitung reported.
JPMorgan raised its price target to €65 from €64, an increase of about 1.6%, and kept its Overweight rating. The near-term reporting picture is less encouraging: O'Kane sees limited scope for positive earnings surprises in upcoming results from European steelmakers.
The forecast behind the call
O'Kane expects earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, across EU steel companies to rise 35% in 2027 and 50% in 2028, each compared with 2026. These are sector forecasts, not reported results or a Salzgitter-specific earnings estimate.
The figures point to a sharp improvement over the 2026 baseline. But European demand is expected to remain subdued in the near term. EUROFER forecasts apparent steel consumption in the EU will grow just 0.1% in 2026, to about 135 million tonnes, before rising 2.3% in 2027, to around 138 million tonnes, according to its market outlook figures.
Production and trade data show the pressure facing the industry. EU steel output fell to 125.8 million tonnes in 2025, while imports rose 14%. Exports declined by 9 million tonnes between 2018 and 2025, then fell a further 20% year over year in the first half of 2026. EUROFER also reported that steelmaking capacity of about 10 million tonnes was restarted in Europe in 2026. Those projections do not establish that the forecast gains will materialize, and the sector outlook is not a precise prediction for Salzgitter.
Why the timing matters
O'Kane's entry-point argument hinges on the sequence he expects: steel prices rise first, followed by an earnings acceleration in the fourth quarter and into 2027. On July 1, the EU introduced tariff quotas in response to growing global excess steelmaking capacity, according to an industry overview of EUROFER's outlook. Investors weighing the stock are comparing its current share price with a forecast whose main catalysts have yet to play out.
The target increase is €1, from €64 to €65. More of the call rests on JPMorgan's retained Overweight rating and its forecast for sector-wide profit growth. A price target is an analyst estimate, not a promised return or a guarantee that the share price will reach that level.
What the figures do not show
EBITDA can help compare operating performance, but it does not equal net income or cash available to shareholders. It excludes interest and taxes, as well as depreciation and amortization, so the forecast alone cannot show how those costs affect a company's bottom line. JPMorgan's sector outlook also is not a precise prediction for Salzgitter.
A target or forecast can describe a scenario without saying when prices will move. The same caution applies to broad valuation measures discussed in Buffett indicator coverage, which notes that such gauges cannot time a market decline.
JPMorgan published its original study on October 14, 2026, and first distributed it on October 15, 2026. The bank's target for Salzgitter is €65, with the Overweight rating unchanged.
