Investors Buy High Volume of Call Options on Vale (NYSE:VALE)

Vale S.A. (NYSE:VALE) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Friday. Stock traders bought 106,975 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 147% compared to the average daily volume of 43,391 call options.

Institutional Trading of Vale

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Brooklyn Investment Group lifted its position in Vale by 215.9% in the fourth quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group now owns 2,780 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 1,900 shares during the period. IFP Advisors Inc lifted its holdings in shares of Vale by 206.4% in the 4th quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 2,877 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 1,938 shares during the period. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Vale in the third quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC grew its holdings in Vale by 3,092.0% during the fourth quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 3,192 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 3,092 shares during the period. Finally, Stonebridge Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in Vale in the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 21.85% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on VALE shares. UBS Group lowered Vale from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $14.00 to $11.50 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Barclays dropped their price objective on Vale from $16.00 to $15.25 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, December 4th. Morgan Stanley cut Vale from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $14.50 to $11.30 in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Wolfe Research raised shares of Vale from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Vale from $14.00 to $11.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 6th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Vale has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $13.26.

Vale Stock Performance

NYSE VALE traded up $0.14 during trading on Friday, reaching $9.92. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 30,043,319 shares, compared to its average volume of 35,921,875. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.91. Vale has a twelve month low of $8.38 and a twelve month high of $13.40. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $9.24 and its 200-day moving average price is $9.96. The firm has a market cap of $45.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.89, a P/E/G ratio of 0.31 and a beta of 0.91.

Vale (NYSE:VALE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 19th. The basic materials company reported $0.20 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.56 by ($0.36). The company had revenue of $10.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.03 billion. Vale had a return on equity of 17.38% and a net margin of 16.15%. As a group, analysts anticipate that Vale will post 1.85 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Vale Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a semi-annual dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 21st. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 10th will be given a dividend of $0.3758 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 10th. This represents a yield of 7.5%. This is an increase from Vale’s previous semi-annual dividend of $0.30. Vale’s dividend payout ratio is presently 88.89%.

About Vale

Vale SA, together with its subsidiaries, produces and sells iron ore and iron ore pellets for use as raw materials in steelmaking in Brazil and internationally. The company operates through Iron Solutions and Energy Transition Materials segments. The Iron Solutions segment produces and extracts iron ore and pellets, manganese, and other ferrous products; and provides related logistic services.