Traders Purchase Large Volume of Cleveland-Cliffs Call Options (NYSE:CLF)

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) saw unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Traders bought 76,612 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 94% compared to the average daily volume of 39,592 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cleveland-Cliffs

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Twelve Points Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 58.5% in the third quarter. Twelve Points Wealth Management LLC now owns 133,717 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $1,708,000 after buying an additional 49,359 shares during the last quarter. Hodges Capital Management Inc. grew its position in Cleveland-Cliffs by 5.0% during the second quarter. Hodges Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,199,634 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $33,852,000 after buying an additional 104,197 shares during the period. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale grew its position in Cleveland-Cliffs by 2.5% during the first quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale now owns 40,118 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $879,000 after buying an additional 984 shares during the period. Natixis bought a new position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in the first quarter worth approximately $100,000. Finally, GSA Capital Partners LLP boosted its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 295.9% in the third quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 205,461 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $2,624,000 after purchasing an additional 153,560 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 67.68% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently weighed in on CLF shares. StockNews.com cut shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 27th. Citigroup decreased their target price on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $18.00 to $12.50 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $15.00 to $13.50 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $17.56.

Cleveland-Cliffs Price Performance

Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs stock opened at $11.67 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.03 and a beta of 1.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a current ratio of 1.85. The company has a fifty day moving average of $12.62 and a 200-day moving average of $14.15. Cleveland-Cliffs has a 52-week low of $10.21 and a 52-week high of $22.97.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The mining company reported ($0.33) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.31) by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $4.57 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.72 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative net margin of 2.31% and a negative return on equity of 0.59%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 18.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.54 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.37 EPS for the current year.

About Cleveland-Cliffs

Cleveland-Cliffs is the largest flat-rolled steel company and the largest iron ore pellet producer in North America. The company is vertically integrated from mining through iron making, steelmaking, rolling, finishing and downstream with hot and cold stamping of steel parts and components. The company was formerly known as Cliffs Natural Resources Inc and changed its name to Cleveland-Cliffs Inc in August 2017.