Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:EXE) Receives $102.00 Consensus Price Target from Analysts

Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:EXE) has been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the eight analysts that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, four have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price target among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $101.71.

EXE has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Chesapeake Energy from $83.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 25th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price objective on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $102.00 to $116.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 22nd. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 31st. Bank of America began coverage on shares of Chesapeake Energy in a research note on Monday, October 28th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $114.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Roth Capital upgraded shares of Chesapeake Energy to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th.

Chesapeake Energy Stock Up 0.2 %

Shares of NASDAQ EXE opened at $98.96 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $22.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 61.09 and a beta of 0.46. The company has a current ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 2.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. Chesapeake Energy has a 52-week low of $69.12 and a 52-week high of $101.27. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $90.48.

Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The company reported $0.16 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.01 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $648.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $708.98 million. Chesapeake Energy had a return on equity of 2.74% and a net margin of 6.07%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 57.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.09 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Chesapeake Energy will post 0.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Chesapeake Energy Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, December 4th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 14th will be issued a $0.575 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 14th. This represents a $2.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.32%. Chesapeake Energy’s payout ratio is 141.98%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Catherine A. Kehr sold 43,623 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $99.58, for a total transaction of $4,343,978.34. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 5,201 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $517,915.58. This represents a 89.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. 58.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

About Chesapeake Energy

Expand Energy Corporation is an independent natural gas producer principally in the United States. Expand Energy Corporation, formerly known as Chesapeake Energy Corporation, is based in OKLAHOMA CITY.