Alcoa Posts $119 Million Loss, but Still Sees Higher Demand Alcoa led the second-quarter corporate earnings season on Monday, reporting a loss far wider than that of a year earlier. But excluding one-time charges, its performance exceeded Wall Street's expectations. The company stuck to its forecast for 7 percent growth in global aluminum demand this year, led by a roughly 10 percent increase for aerospace needs, even though aluminum prices fell about 8 percent in the second quarter. But other parts of Alcoa's business - the sale of aluminum sheets and parts like fasteners - are growing as car and aircraft manufacturers use more aluminum for better fuel efficiency. Alcoa took charges against its earnings for closing two smelter lines in Canada and a smelter in Italy, but it is expanding mills in Tennessee and Iowa that cater to the auto and aerospace industries. The company reported a second-quarter loss of $119 million, or 11 cents a share. That compared with a loss of $2 million, or break-even on a per-share basis, a year earlier. Excluding $195 million in restructuring and legal-expense items, Alcoa said it would have earned 7 cents a share, a penny more than analysts had expected. Revenue fell 2 percent, to $5.85 billion, matching the forecast of analysts surveyed by FactSet. Alcoa, which is based in Pittsburgh, has been the worst-performing stock in the Dow Jones industrial average this year, down 9 percent. In after-hours trading on Monday, after Alcoa reported its results, its shares slipped 5 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $7.87. In May, Moody's Investors Service cut the company's credit rating to junk status, citing weak aluminum prices. Klaus Kleinfeld, Alcoa's chairman and chief executive, said on Monday that the company was disappointed by the move, which he attributed to Moody's view of the economy and aluminum prices, not Alcoa's strategy and performance. "We control what we can control, and we can't control the metal price volatility," he said on a conference call with analysts.