Investors Buy High Volume of Cleveland-Cliffs Call Options (NYSE:CLF)

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) saw unusually large options trading on Monday. Traders bought 63,119 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 20% compared to the average daily volume of 52,541 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cleveland-Cliffs news, EVP James D. Graham sold 120,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.85, for a total value of $822,000.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 492,249 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,371,905.65. This trade represents a 19.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 1.71% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cleveland-Cliffs

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CLF. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 5.5% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 48,751,789 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $458,267,000 after acquiring an additional 2,556,332 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 3.1% during the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 21,247,426 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $199,724,000 after purchasing an additional 647,282 shares in the last quarter. Slate Path Capital LP boosted its position in Cleveland-Cliffs by 35.4% during the 4th quarter. Slate Path Capital LP now owns 16,208,000 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $152,355,000 after acquiring an additional 4,239,000 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Cleveland-Cliffs by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,466,747 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $79,611,000 after purchasing an additional 264,078 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. Can bought a new position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in the 4th quarter valued at about $55,453,000. Institutional investors own 67.68% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have commented on CLF. Glj Research lowered shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “strong-buy” rating to a “strong sell” rating and set a $3.91 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, May 28th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on Cleveland-Cliffs from $7.50 to $8.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, June 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $7.50 price objective on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a research report on Monday, July 14th. B. Riley reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $17.00 target price (down from $20.00) on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a research note on Wednesday, April 23rd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price target on Cleveland-Cliffs from $13.00 to $11.25 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $9.78.

Cleveland-Cliffs Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:CLF opened at $10.71 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.29 billion, a P/E ratio of -4.39 and a beta of 1.91. The business has a 50-day moving average of $7.70 and a two-hundred day moving average of $8.78. Cleveland-Cliffs has a fifty-two week low of $5.63 and a fifty-two week high of $16.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.17, a current ratio of 2.13 and a quick ratio of 0.64.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last released its earnings results on Monday, July 21st. The mining company reported ($0.50) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.68) by $0.18. The business had revenue of $4.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.90 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative net margin of 6.35% and a negative return on equity of 12.84%. The firm’s revenue was up 7.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.11 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.79 EPS for the current fiscal 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.