First Eagle Investment Management LLC Trims Position in Royal Gold, Inc. (NASDAQ:RGLD)

First Eagle Investment Management LLC decreased its position in shares of Royal Gold, Inc. (NASDAQ:RGLD) (TSE:RGL) by 2.5% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 3,479,123 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 90,085 shares during the quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC owned about 0.05% of Royal Gold worth $458,722,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC lifted its stake in shares of Royal Gold by 1.6% during the fourth quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 13,005 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,715,000 after buying an additional 199 shares during the period. Erste Asset Management GmbH lifted its stake in shares of Royal Gold by 523.8% during the fourth quarter. Erste Asset Management GmbH now owns 2,620 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $349,000 after buying an additional 2,200 shares during the period. Swiss National Bank lifted its stake in shares of Royal Gold by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 129,300 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $17,048,000 after buying an additional 900 shares during the period. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Royal Gold during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $741,000. Finally, Great Lakes Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Royal Gold by 30.3% during the fourth quarter. Great Lakes Advisors LLC now owns 82,027 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $10,815,000 after buying an additional 19,089 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.65% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of Royal Gold from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $154.00 to $178.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $168.86.

Royal Gold Stock Performance

Shares of RGLD stock opened at $153.54 on Friday. Royal Gold, Inc. has a one year low of $107.33 and a one year high of $157.67. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $143.49 and a 200 day moving average price of $143.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $10.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.42 and a beta of 0.84.

Royal Gold (NASDAQ:RGLD) (TSE:RGL) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 12th. The basic materials company reported $1.63 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.46 by $0.17. Royal Gold had a net margin of 46.15% and a return on equity of 11.46%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Royal Gold, Inc. will post 6.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Royal Gold Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, April 4th will be given a $0.45 dividend. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.17%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, April 4th. Royal Gold’s payout ratio is currently 35.71%.

Royal Gold Company Profile

Royal Gold, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, acquires and manages precious metal streams, royalties, and related interests. The company engages in acquiring stream and royalty interests or to finance projects that are in production, development, or in the exploration stage in exchange for stream or royalty interests, which primarily consists of gold, silver, copper, nickel, zinc, lead, and other metals.