Freeport-McMoRan Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.15 (NYSE:FCX)

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, June 26th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Monday, July 15th will be paid a dividend of 0.15 per share by the natural resource company on Thursday, August 1st. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.23%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, July 15th.

Freeport-McMoRan has raised its dividend payment by an average of 81.7% per year over the last three years. Freeport-McMoRan has a dividend payout ratio of 13.3% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Freeport-McMoRan to earn $2.32 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.30 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 12.9%.

Freeport-McMoRan Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:FCX traded down $0.54 during trading on Thursday, reaching $48.93. The company had a trading volume of 1,216,599 shares, compared to its average volume of 14,055,289. Freeport-McMoRan has a twelve month low of $32.83 and a twelve month high of $55.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 1.41 and a current ratio of 2.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $70.29 billion, a PE ratio of 43.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 1.96. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $50.63 and its 200 day moving average is $44.97.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The natural resource company reported $0.32 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.27 by $0.05. The company had revenue of $6.32 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.70 billion. Freeport-McMoRan had a net margin of 6.97% and a return on equity of 7.17%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 17.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.52 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Freeport-McMoRan will post 1.72 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Stephen T. Higgins sold 80,000 shares of Freeport-McMoRan stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $52.03, for a total value of $4,162,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 104,377 shares in the company, valued at $5,430,735.31. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. In other news, VP Douglas N. Currault II sold 55,000 shares of Freeport-McMoRan stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.99, for a total transaction of $2,859,450.00. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 164,067 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,529,843.33. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Stephen T. Higgins sold 80,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $52.03, for a total value of $4,162,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 104,377 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,430,735.31. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 445,667 shares of company stock valued at $22,755,070 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.79% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have issued reports on FCX. BNP Paribas raised shares of Freeport-McMoRan to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, June 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on Freeport-McMoRan from $52.00 to $51.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Scotiabank increased their price target on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $53.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “sector outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. HSBC raised their price target on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $39.00 to $45.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 23rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Freeport-McMoRan from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $49.50 to $62.00 in a research report on Friday, June 21st. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $52.93.

About Freeport-McMoRan

Freeport-McMoRan Inc engages in the mining of mineral properties in North America, South America, and Indonesia. It primarily explores for copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, and other metals. The company's assets include the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia; Morenci, Bagdad, Safford, Sierrita, and Miami in Arizona; Chino and Tyrone in New Mexico; and Henderson and Climax in Colorado, North America, as well as Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile.