Amerize Inc.

Amrize has been added to the Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell) list after a run of earnings misses, weaker margins and reduced guidance sent the building-materials company's shares down 30% year to date to near a 52-week low of $36. The North American-focused company missed earnings expectations in each of the first two quarters of 2026, with Q1 adjusted earnings a loss of $0.16 per share against a Zacks EPS Consensus of -$0.14 and Q2 adjusted EPS of $0.88 below the consensus estimate of $0.92. Despite Q2 revenue rising 8%, Amrize's adjusted EBITDA margin slipped to 28.2% from 29%, with Building Materials margins contracting 100 basis points and Building Envelope margins falling 350 basis points. Following Q2 results, Amrize revised its 2026 adjusted EBITDA outlook to $3.1-$3.2 billion from $3.25-$3.34 billion, citing oil-driven inflation in freight, diesel and raw-material costs, and FY26 and FY27 EPS projections are now down over 7% in the last 60 days while current quarter and next quarter EPS revisions have fallen more than 13% and 56% in the last two months. Bank of America cited tariffs as a risk to Canadian demand when lowering its outlook for the company, after the U.S. imposed 50% Section 338 tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods this summer without a USMCA exemption, initially affecting Portland cement before non-white Portland cement was removed from the tariff list effective Sept. 15.

Amrize shares fell more than 6% on Tuesday after Truist downgraded the building materials company to Hold from Buy and cut its price target to $48 from $65, citing margin pressures in commercial roofing and limited near-term cement pricing upside. Analyst Keith Hughes said the commercial roofing segment, which accounts for approximately 28% of sales, will take time to pass through very large input inflation, causing price and mix erosion in 2026. The Iran conflict has driven up petrochemical prices, with MDI, a key roofing input, surging as much as 73% following supply disruptions and force majeure declarations at major producers Dow and Covestro. Hughes noted that cement, representing 35% of sales, should see positive volume trends but that the lack of pricing gains limits EBITDA improvement, viewing a meaningful turn in cement pricing as a 2027 issue at best. Truist lowered its 2026 EBITDA estimate to $3,199 million from $3,298 million, with the new price target based on 10.5 times EV/EBITDA, and Hughes expects Amrize to remain stuck in its post-spin trading range, also due to new competition capacity in roofing, flagging Kingspan's entry into the U.S. non-residential market with two plants and plans for a third as a longer-term concern whose impact will first be seen in 2027.