Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) Price Target Increased to $54.00 by Analysts at Argus

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) had its price objective boosted by Argus from $44.00 to $54.00 in a report published on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a buy rating on the natural resource company’s stock.

FCX has been the subject of several other research reports. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Freeport-McMoRan from a market perform rating to an outperform rating and raised their price objective for the company from $41.00 to $48.50 in a report on Monday, January 8th. Royal Bank of Canada restated a sector perform rating and issued a $55.00 price objective on shares of Freeport-McMoRan in a report on Thursday, January 25th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $52.00 to $51.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Scotiabank cut their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $55.00 to $53.00 and set a sector outperform rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Bernstein Bank raised their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $52.00 to $52.50 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Tuesday. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Freeport-McMoRan has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $50.07.

Freeport-McMoRan Trading Up 2.3 %

NYSE:FCX traded up $1.15 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $50.55. 10,749,570 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 13,884,208. The company’s 50 day moving average is $44.24 and its two-hundred day moving average is $40.20. Freeport-McMoRan has a twelve month low of $32.83 and a twelve month high of $52.42. The company has a quick ratio of 1.38, a current ratio of 2.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The company has a market capitalization of $72.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.72, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 2.04.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The natural resource company reported $0.32 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by $0.05. Freeport-McMoRan had a return on equity of 7.17% and a net margin of 6.97%. The company had revenue of $6.32 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.70 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.52 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 17.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Freeport-McMoRan will post 1.58 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Freeport-McMoRan Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Investors of record on Monday, April 15th will be paid a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, April 12th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.19%. Freeport-McMoRan’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 26.55%.

Institutional Trading of Freeport-McMoRan

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 0.3% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 119,369,409 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $4,451,285,000 after buying an additional 305,912 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 59,752,726 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $2,543,676,000 after buying an additional 419,603 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 55,710,695 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $2,371,604,000 after buying an additional 1,030,451 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 7.9% during the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 21,157,118 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $994,808,000 after buying an additional 1,551,828 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan by 4.2% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 17,756,034 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $662,123,000 after purchasing an additional 709,114 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 80.77% of the company’s stock.

About Freeport-McMoRan

Freeport-McMoRan Inc engages in the mining of mineral properties in North America, South America, and Indonesia. It primarily explores for copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, and other metals. The company's assets include the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia; Morenci, Bagdad, Safford, Sierrita, and Miami in Arizona; Chino and Tyrone in New Mexico; and Henderson and Climax in Colorado, North America, as well as Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile.