Morgan Stanley Issues Positive Forecast for Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) Stock Price

Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) had its price objective lifted by Morgan Stanley from $137.00 to $154.00 in a report released on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the stock.

Several other analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Barclays dropped their price target on Chesapeake Energy from $117.00 to $115.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. Scotiabank raised shares of Chesapeake Energy from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $105.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $116.00 price target on shares of Chesapeake Energy in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Chesapeake Energy from $105.00 to $107.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 20th. Finally, Mizuho boosted their target price on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $128.00 to $132.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Chesapeake Energy has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $120.71.

Chesapeake Energy Trading Up 1.2 %

Shares of EXE stock opened at $110.94 on Thursday. Chesapeake Energy has a 1 year low of $81.66 and a 1 year high of $111.18. The firm has a market cap of $25.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 68.48 and a beta of 0.53. The company has a quick ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 2.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $104.12.

Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 26th. The company reported $0.55 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.53 by $0.02. Chesapeake Energy had a return on equity of 2.74% and a net margin of 6.07%. The company had revenue of $2 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.82 billion. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Chesapeake Energy will post 1.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Chesapeake Energy Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, March 27th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 11th were given a dividend of $0.575 per share. This represents a $2.30 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.07%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, March 11th. Chesapeake Energy’s dividend payout ratio is currently -55.83%.

Insider Activity at Chesapeake Energy

In other Chesapeake Energy news, CEO Domenic J. Dell’osso, Jr. bought 2,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 5th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $99.50 per share, for a total transaction of $248,750.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 107,845 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,730,577.50. This represents a 2.37 % increase in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 58.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Chesapeake Energy Company Profile

Expand Energy Corporation is an independent natural gas producer principally in the United States. Expand Energy Corporation, formerly known as Chesapeake Energy Corporation, is based in OKLAHOMA CITY.