Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” by Analysts

Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) have earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the eight research firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $10.9575.

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on CLF. KeyCorp upgraded shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $14.00 target price for the company in a research report on Tuesday, July 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $7.50 to $10.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 24th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Cleveland-Cliffs to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 14th. The Goldman Sachs Group decreased their target price on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $13.00 to $11.25 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $8.00 to $10.50 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 22nd.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cleveland-Cliffs

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 20.2% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,450,442 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $208,623,000 after acquiring an additional 4,603,807 shares during the last quarter. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. acquired a new stake in Cleveland-Cliffs in the 2nd quarter valued at about $63,731,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets lifted its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 200.4% in the 2nd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 6,329,414 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $48,104,000 after acquiring an additional 4,222,528 shares during the last quarter. Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. Can acquired a new stake in Cleveland-Cliffs in the 4th quarter valued at about $55,453,000. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Cleveland-Cliffs in the 2nd quarter valued at about $44,120,000. 67.68% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Cleveland-Cliffs Stock Performance

Shares of CLF opened at $10.72 on Tuesday. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $9.75 and a 200 day moving average price of $8.81. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.30 billion, a PE ratio of -3.14 and a beta of 1.93. The company has a quick ratio of 0.61, a current ratio of 2.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28. Cleveland-Cliffs has a 52-week low of $5.63 and a 52-week high of $14.34.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last announced its earnings results on Monday, July 21st. The mining company reported ($0.50) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.68) by $0.18. The firm had revenue of $4.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.90 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative net margin of 9.03% and a negative return on equity of 17.97%. Cleveland-Cliffs’s revenue was up 7.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.11 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.79 earnings per share 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.