Invesco Ltd. Increases Stake in MFA Financial, Inc. $MFA

Invesco Ltd. grew its holdings in MFA Financial, Inc. (NYSE:MFA) by 23.3% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,508,456 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock after acquiring an additional 285,344 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. owned 1.47% of MFA Financial worth $15,477,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Golden State Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of MFA Financial in the 1st quarter worth $25,000. Sterling Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in MFA Financial by 823.4% during the fourth quarter. Sterling Capital Management LLC now owns 3,278 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 2,923 shares during the period. Quarry LP bought a new stake in MFA Financial during the fourth quarter valued at about $36,000. Bank of Montreal Can increased its position in MFA Financial by 10.5% in the fourth quarter. Bank of Montreal Can now owns 11,890 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $121,000 after buying an additional 1,134 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MQS Management LLC bought a new position in shares of MFA Financial in the first quarter worth about $131,000. Institutional investors own 65.28% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on MFA shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods downgraded MFA Financial from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $12.00 to $10.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. Jones Trading reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of MFA Financial in a research report on Monday, August 11th. JMP Securities reduced their price objective on shares of MFA Financial from $12.00 to $11.00 and set a “market outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $10.00 target price on shares of MFA Financial and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 28th. Finally, UBS Group upped their target price on shares of MFA Financial from $9.50 to $10.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, July 10th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $12.07.

MFA Financial Stock Performance

MFA stock opened at $10.0950 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $9.48 and its 200-day moving average price is $9.77. MFA Financial, Inc. has a one year low of $7.85 and a one year high of $13.45. The company has a market capitalization of $1.04 billion, a PE ratio of 11.60 and a beta of 1.64.

MFA Financial (NYSE:MFA) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.29 by ($0.05). The company had revenue of $61.28 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $59.50 million. MFA Financial had a net margin of 17.62% and a return on equity of 8.61%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.32 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that MFA Financial, Inc. will post 1.5 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MFA Financial Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 30th. Investors of record on Thursday, September 4th will be given a $0.4688 dividend. This is an increase from MFA Financial’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. This represents a $1.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 18.6%. MFA Financial’s payout ratio is currently 165.52%.

MFA Financial Profile

MFA Financial, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate investment trust in the United States. It invests in residential mortgage securities, including non-agency mortgage-backed securities, agency MBS, and credit risk transfer securities; residential whole loans, including purchased performing loans, purchased credit deteriorated, and non-performing loans; and mortgage servicing rights related assets.