Hancock Whitney Corp Decreases Position in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX)

Hancock Whitney Corp reduced its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) by 25.7% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 14,812 shares of the natural resource company’s stock after selling 5,123 shares during the period. Hancock Whitney Corp’s holdings in Freeport-McMoRan were worth $739,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in FCX. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan by 2.4% in the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 59,409,395 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $2,965,717,000 after purchasing an additional 1,392,494 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 5.1% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 11,028,452 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $536,038,000 after buying an additional 530,676 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 0.5% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 10,343,109 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $502,675,000 after acquiring an additional 56,499 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Freeport-McMoRan by 1.6% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 8,223,038 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $410,494,000 after acquiring an additional 127,251 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital Wealth Planning LLC raised its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan by 34.9% in the 2nd quarter. Capital Wealth Planning LLC now owns 5,943,074 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $288,833,000 after acquiring an additional 1,538,560 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 80.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on FCX shares. Scotiabank dropped their price target on Freeport-McMoRan from $53.00 to $52.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. UBS Group raised Freeport-McMoRan from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $54.00 to $55.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. StockNews.com lowered Freeport-McMoRan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $53.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Finally, Raymond James raised their price objective on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $55.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $54.00.

Freeport-McMoRan Price Performance

FCX opened at $43.48 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $62.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.74, a PEG ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 1.91. The company has a current ratio of 2.33, a quick ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $46.90 and its 200 day moving average price is $47.05. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. has a 12-month low of $36.04 and a 12-month high of $55.24.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 22nd. The natural resource company reported $0.38 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.37 by $0.01. Freeport-McMoRan had a net margin of 7.81% and a return on equity of 7.40%. The business had revenue of $6.79 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6.45 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.39 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Freeport-McMoRan Inc. will post 1.51 earnings per share for the current year.

Freeport-McMoRan Cuts Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, October 15th were paid a $0.075 dividend. This represents a $0.30 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, October 15th. Freeport-McMoRan’s payout ratio is currently 21.90%.

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.