Sales were said to be in line with Management expectations Vesuvius refrained from disclosing sales growth in the period, instead discussing broader market trends. It noted that Steel production remained strong in all regions outside of China and that developments in most of Foundry''s end markets - with the notable exception of Automotive (c.26% of Foundry sales) market - were encouraging. In all, sales in the July-October period were said to be in line with Management''s expectations. Looking forward, Vesuvius noted that it still expects sales in H2 to be broadly similar to the H1 level (in keeping with prior messaging), with pricing gains making up for slightly lower volumes (on account of Foundry). Guidance implied small cuts to consensus expectations... All eyes were on Vesuvius'' outlook for the year. With inflationary pressures intensifying in the period since Vesuvius reported its H1 results, the market was primed for a downbeat message. Within this context, the message Vesuvius delivered wasn''t all that surprising, in our view. Vesuvius stated that it expects headline operating profit to be within the bottom range of Consensus expectations (GBP137-147m). In our view, this is likely to lead to Consensus FY''21 trading profit forecast cuts of 2/3% from GBP143m - a scenario we believe was already priced in by the market. There are hopes that pricing can offset inflationary headwinds from Y/E Whilst the inflationary backdrop remains challenging, encouragingly Vesuvius has been able to increase prices such that if input costs stabilise at current levels it expects to fully mitigate the inflationary pressures from freight and raw materials from Y/E. Whilst visibility in regard to how cost pressures evolves clearly remains limited, we find it encouraging to hear that Vesuvius is successfully putting through price increases to combat headwinds and that it expects to able to continue doing so should input costs continue to rise. We update...