Gordon Johnson : Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Congratulations on the strong cash flow. A lot of the questions I had have been answered. But I just wanted to get your thoughts on kind of a broader question. Just given — just looking at the U.S. economy and given consumer spending are the engine of the U.S. economy is starting to sputter, you have retail purchases down in three of the past four months, you have spending on services flat in December, which is the worst in a year, home sales last year fell to the lowest level since 2014, auto sales the worst since 2022 last year. It just seems like some — in some of the forces that help keep spinning higher kind of unwinding. Just wanted to get your thoughts on — given those dynamics, what do you guys think about pricing in the first and second quarter and the second half? And then one follow-up.
David Burritt : Well, thanks. I think we are seeing prices come back. Obviously, we talked about that a bit earlier. So through the first quarter, things related price and demand are stronger. It’s always hard to forecast in this industry what’s going to happen. I indicated I believe it’s going to be a soft landing in the back half. But the reality is nobody really knows for sure, but I think the key piece here is if you look at the labor markets, they continue to be very strong. People continue to have jobs, they continue to spend and they continue to move the economy forward. But if there’s going to be a deep recession or a recession, it’s probably going to be consumer-led, as I said earlier. But for — right now, it does seem good for the first quarter in terms of pricing.
We have indications that longer term, it should be really good because we’ve got these bills that will start to kick in. The infrastructure bill really hasn’t hit yet. And then with the IRA and of course, the CHIPS Act moving forward, those are all very positive things. And I think with the Fed easing rates, we should probably see this thing continue. We said some time ago, we don’t see — even though we model towards the average price CRU index when we do our business case studies, we believe it should settle higher than that over the cycle because we have had industry consolidation. We have had changes in the dynamic. We have better trade enforcement. So — again, it gets back to really bullish longer term. We’re in this transitional period with a lot of uncertainty.
And frankly, I think a lot of people think the Fed is doing a lot better job on the soft landing than what was expected. But the reality is nobody knows. And the good news for us is we’ve got a really healthy balance sheet, lots of liquidity, lots of cash, so we’re going to be able to manage whatever comes our way. But I’m bullish on the U.S.A. I’m bullish on the U.S. steel industry, and I’m bullish on U.S. Steel. And I believe, longer term, the prices will be sustainable and higher.
Gordon Johnson : And just a quick follow-up. You guys have built a strong cash position. Any plans that maybe you didn’t mention on what you plan to do with that strong cash position? Thanks for the question. And congrats on results.
