Voleon Capital Management LP Acquires Shares of 98,738 Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX)

Voleon Capital Management LP bought a new position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund bought 98,738 shares of the natural resource company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,760,000.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in FCX. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 123,219,298 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $4,692,191,000 after purchasing an additional 642,776 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 21.9% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 31,885,531 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $1,214,203,000 after buying an additional 5,735,171 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 29,579,298 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $1,122,922,000 after buying an additional 688,240 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its stake in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 8.0% in the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 29,502,220 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $1,123,445,000 after buying an additional 2,191,926 shares during the period. Finally, Capital World Investors lifted its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 3.2% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 24,055,524 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $916,037,000 after buying an additional 750,500 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 80.77% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Scotiabank lowered their price objective on Freeport-McMoRan from $45.00 to $40.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, April 7th. Dbs Bank upgraded shares of Freeport-McMoRan from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 10th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered shares of Freeport-McMoRan from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $51.00 to $46.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their target price on Freeport-McMoRan from $54.00 to $50.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 24th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Freeport-McMoRan from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $39.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and three have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $48.09.

Freeport-McMoRan Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of FCX opened at $37.18 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 2.42 and a quick ratio of 1.18. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. has a 1-year low of $27.66 and a 1-year high of $55.24. The company has a market capitalization of $53.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.82, a P/E/G ratio of 0.87 and a beta of 1.71. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $36.21 and its 200 day simple moving average is $39.77.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 24th. The natural resource company reported $0.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.23 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $5.73 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.36 billion. Freeport-McMoRan had a net margin of 7.42% and a return on equity of 7.50%. The firm’s revenue was down 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.32 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Freeport-McMoRan Inc. will post 1.68 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 Thursday, May 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, April 15th will be given a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, April 15th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.61%. Freeport-McMoRan’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.79%.

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.