Freeport-McMoRan Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:FCX)

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) saw unusually large options trading on Thursday. Stock traders bought 66,619 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 21% compared to the average volume of 55,119 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Cape ANN Savings Bank grew its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 1.6% during the second quarter. Cape ANN Savings Bank now owns 15,588 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $624,000 after buying an additional 250 shares in the last quarter. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 5.1% during the fourth quarter. FinTrust Capital Advisors LLC now owns 5,252 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $200,000 after buying an additional 253 shares in the last quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. grew its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 2.6% during the fourth quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. now owns 10,606 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $451,000 after buying an additional 267 shares in the last quarter. Drive Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Drive Wealth Management LLC now owns 9,840 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $419,000 after buying an additional 267 shares in the last quarter. Finally, West Michigan Advisors LLC boosted its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. West Michigan Advisors LLC now owns 6,899 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $294,000 after purchasing an additional 268 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.77% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the company. 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. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Freeport-McMoRan from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $41.00 to $48.50 in a report on Monday, January 8th. UBS Group lowered their target price on Freeport-McMoRan from $42.00 to $41.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, December 13th. Raymond James increased their target price on Freeport-McMoRan from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on Freeport-McMoRan from $41.00 to $40.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $44.95.

Freeport-McMoRan Price Performance

Shares of NYSE FCX opened at $46.99 on Friday. Freeport-McMoRan has a fifty-two week low of $32.83 and a fifty-two week high of $47.19. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $40.26 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $38.67. The company has a quick ratio of 1.38, a current ratio of 2.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The firm has a market cap of $67.40 billion, a PE ratio of 37.00 and a beta of 2.02.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, January 24th. The natural resource company reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.23 by $0.04. Freeport-McMoRan had a return on equity of 8.41% and a net margin of 8.09%. The firm had revenue of $5.91 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.85 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.52 EPS. Freeport-McMoRan’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Freeport-McMoRan will post 1.53 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Freeport-McMoRan Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 15th will be given a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 12th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.28%. Freeport-McMoRan’s payout ratio is 23.62%.

Freeport-McMoRan Company Profile

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.