Evanson Asset Management LLC Purchases New Shares in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX)

Evanson Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund purchased 8,361 shares of the natural resource company’s stock, valued at approximately $356,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. CM Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 80.0% in the 3rd quarter. CM Management LLC now owns 36,000 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $1,342,000 after acquiring an additional 16,000 shares in the last quarter. Ion Asset Management Ltd. raised its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 72.7% in the 2nd quarter. Ion Asset Management Ltd. now owns 504,000 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $20,160,000 after purchasing an additional 212,100 shares during the period. PointState Capital LP lifted its stake in Freeport-McMoRan by 171.9% in the second quarter. PointState Capital LP now owns 1,439,447 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $57,578,000 after purchasing an additional 910,004 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Freeport-McMoRan by 1.4% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 7,508,085 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $279,977,000 after purchasing an additional 102,466 shares during the period. Finally, Alphinity Investment Management Pty Ltd lifted its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 57.4% in the third quarter. Alphinity Investment Management Pty Ltd now owns 5,391,230 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $201,039,000 after purchasing an additional 1,965,987 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently commented on FCX shares. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $42.00 to $41.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, December 13th. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $55.00 price objective on shares of Freeport-McMoRan in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $41.00 to $40.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, December 7th. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Freeport-McMoRan from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $41.00 to $48.50 in a report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Eight Capital set a $55.00 price objective on Freeport-McMoRan and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $44.95.

Freeport-McMoRan Stock Up 2.4 %

Freeport-McMoRan stock traded up $1.10 on Thursday, hitting $46.99. 20,164,344 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 12,994,903. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. has a 1 year low of $32.83 and a 1 year high of $47.19. The firm has a market cap of $67.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 37.09 and a beta of 2.02. The company has a current ratio of 2.42, a quick ratio of 1.38 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $40.08 and its 200 day simple moving average is $38.62.

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

Freeport-McMoRan Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared 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 is Friday, April 12th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.28%. Freeport-McMoRan’s payout ratio is currently 23.62%.

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.