Painful cuts pay dividends for Alcoa

PITTSBURGH: Painful cost-cutting and rising sales to automakers helped the US' largest aluminum producer return to profitability for the first time in nine months.

Alcoa Inc also forecast an 11 percent increase in worldwide aluminum demand in the second half of the year, fueled partly by robust growth in China. The lightweight metal is used in everything from airplanes to cars to houses.

Even though Alcoa reported a 71 percent drop in third-quarter profit from a year earlier, the results were a relief after three straight quarterly losses.