Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) Trading 7% Higher – Time to Buy?

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) rose 7% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $11.30 and last traded at $11.31. Approximately 8,210,020 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 50% from the average daily volume of 16,482,117 shares. The stock had previously closed at $10.57.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on CLF. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. They issued a “buy” rating and a $16.00 price objective on the stock. Citigroup dropped their target price on Cleveland-Cliffs from $12.50 to $11.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. B. Riley reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their price target on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $13.00 to $11.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $16.54.

Cleveland-Cliffs Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a current ratio of 1.85. The stock has a market cap of $5.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -11.03 and a beta of 1.96. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $10.28 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $11.67.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last issued its earnings results on Monday, February 24th. The mining company reported ($0.68) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.65) by ($0.03). Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative return on equity of 0.59% and a negative net margin of 2.31%. The business had revenue of $4.33 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.46 billion. Analysts expect that Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. will post -0.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Cleveland-Cliffs

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CLF. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 5.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 48,751,789 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $458,267,000 after acquiring an additional 2,556,332 shares in the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 13.7% during the third quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 25,893,879 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $330,665,000 after purchasing an additional 3,110,651 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 21,247,426 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $199,724,000 after buying an additional 647,282 shares during the period. Slate Path Capital LP raised its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 35.4% in the 4th quarter. Slate Path Capital LP now owns 16,208,000 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $152,355,000 after buying an additional 4,239,000 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 3.2% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,466,747 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $79,611,000 after acquiring an additional 264,078 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 67.68% of the company’s stock.

Cleveland-Cliffs Company Profile

Cleveland-Cliffs is the largest flat-rolled steel company and the largest iron ore pellet producer in North America. The company is vertically integrated from mining through iron making, steelmaking, rolling, finishing and downstream with hot and cold stamping of steel parts and components. The company was formerly known as Cliffs Natural Resources Inc and changed its name to Cleveland-Cliffs Inc in August 2017.