JPMorgan Chase & Co. Boosts Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) Price Target to $52.00

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) had its price target upped by stock analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $43.00 to $52.00 in a report issued on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a “neutral” rating on the natural resource company’s stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.‘s price objective points to a potential upside of 4.63% from the company’s current price.

A number of other equities analysts have also issued reports on the stock. Scotiabank boosted their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $48.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, April 9th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Freeport-McMoRan from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $41.00 to $48.50 in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $55.00 target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan in a research report on Thursday, January 25th. Raymond James boosted their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $42.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 4th. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of Freeport-McMoRan from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $59.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, April 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Freeport-McMoRan presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $47.54.

Freeport-McMoRan Stock Performance

Shares of FCX stock traded up $0.29 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $49.70. The stock had a trading volume of 13,011,924 shares, compared to its average volume of 13,658,624. The firm has a market capitalization of $71.29 billion, a PE ratio of 39.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 2.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 2.42 and a quick ratio of 1.38. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $42.87 and a 200-day simple moving average of $39.68. Freeport-McMoRan has a twelve month low of $32.83 and a twelve month high of $52.42.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 24th. The natural resource company reported $0.27 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.23 by $0.04. Freeport-McMoRan had a net margin of 8.09% and a return on equity of 8.41%. The company had revenue of $5.91 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.85 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.52 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Freeport-McMoRan will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 0.3% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 119,369,409 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $4,451,285,000 after buying an additional 305,912 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors raised its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 59,752,726 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $2,543,676,000 after purchasing an additional 419,603 shares during the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 55,710,695 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $2,371,604,000 after purchasing an additional 1,030,451 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan by 14.9% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 34,490,074 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $1,468,244,000 after purchasing an additional 4,465,687 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan by 1.9% during the 1st quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 25,338,465 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $1,033,858,000 after purchasing an additional 472,160 shares during the last quarter. 80.77% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.