Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC Buys 2,736 Shares of Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO)

Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) by 56.5% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 7,579 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,736 shares during the quarter. Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Southern Copper were worth $652,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in SCCO. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in Southern Copper by 200.6% in the 2nd quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 4,179,899 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $208,201,000 after acquiring an additional 2,789,376 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. lifted its position in Southern Copper by 43.3% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 2,763,612 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $209,759,000 after acquiring an additional 835,044 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in Southern Copper by 10.7% in the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 7,797,970 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $594,595,000 after acquiring an additional 756,555 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE lifted its position in Southern Copper by 80.5% in the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 1,537,487 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $117,233,000 after acquiring an additional 685,541 shares in the last quarter. Finally, First Republic Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in Southern Copper by 722.8% in the 1st quarter. First Republic Investment Management Inc. now owns 646,160 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $49,044,000 after acquiring an additional 567,629 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 7.94% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group raised shares of Southern Copper from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $91.00 to $130.00 in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. StockNews.com cut shares of Southern Copper from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, February 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of Southern Copper from $63.50 to $61.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on shares of Southern Copper from $61.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Southern Copper has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $76.83.

Southern Copper Trading Down 0.2 %

Shares of SCCO stock opened at $116.21 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $92.07 and a 200-day moving average of $82.29. The company has a quick ratio of 2.46, a current ratio of 3.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.84. Southern Copper Co. has a 12-month low of $64.66 and a 12-month high of $117.86. The firm has a market cap of $89.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 37.01 and a beta of 1.29.

Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, February 2nd. The basic materials company reported $0.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.73 by ($0.15). Southern Copper had a return on equity of 30.85% and a net margin of 24.51%. The company had revenue of $2.30 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.37 billion. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Southern Copper Co. will post 3.67 earnings per share for the current year.

Southern Copper Cuts Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 29th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 13th were paid a dividend of $0.80 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, February 12th. This represents a $3.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.75%. Southern Copper’s payout ratio is currently 101.91%.

Southern Copper Company Profile

Southern Copper Corporation engages in mining, exploring, smelting, and refining copper and other minerals in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile. The company is involved in the mining, milling, and flotation of copper ore to produce copper and molybdenum concentrates; smelting of copper concentrates to produce blister and anode copper; refining of anode copper to produce copper cathodes; production of molybdenum concentrate and sulfuric acid; production of refined silver, gold, and other materials; and mining and processing of zinc, copper, molybdenum, silver, gold, and lead.