Virtu Financial LLC Takes Position in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX)

Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 70,170 shares of the natural resource company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,672,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of FCX. Mountaineer Partners Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 4,767.8% in the 3rd quarter. Mountaineer Partners Management LLC now owns 11,933,126 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $595,702,000 after acquiring an additional 11,687,982 shares in the last quarter. Amundi grew its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 30.2% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 21,580,960 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $857,305,000 after purchasing an additional 5,001,531 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 142.5% during the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 4,279,517 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $162,964,000 after purchasing an additional 2,515,103 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 9.5% during the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 27,310,294 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $1,348,522,000 after purchasing an additional 2,366,187 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its stake 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 buying an additional 1,392,494 shares in the last quarter. 80.77% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

FCX has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Dbs Bank raised Freeport-McMoRan from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 10th. StockNews.com downgraded Freeport-McMoRan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Freeport-McMoRan from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $48.00 to $52.00 in a research report on Thursday. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on Freeport-McMoRan from $48.00 to $45.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 24th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Freeport-McMoRan from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $47.00 price objective for the company in a report on Thursday, March 6th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Freeport-McMoRan presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $52.04.

Freeport-McMoRan Stock Performance

FCX opened at $40.31 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a current ratio of 2.42. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $38.03 and its 200 day simple moving average is $41.97. The firm has a market capitalization of $57.93 billion, a PE ratio of 31.25, a PEG ratio of 0.87 and a beta of 1.87. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. has a 52-week low of $33.98 and a 52-week high of $55.24.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 23rd. The natural resource company reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.36 by ($0.05). Freeport-McMoRan had a net margin of 7.42% and a return on equity of 7.50%. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Freeport-McMoRan Inc. will post 1.68 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.