Wealth Alliance Decreases Stock Position in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX)

Wealth Alliance cut its holdings in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) by 18.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 9,676 shares of the natural resource company’s stock after selling 2,184 shares during the period. Wealth Alliance’s holdings in Freeport-McMoRan were worth $368,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in FCX. Mountaineer Partners Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 4,767.8% in the 3rd quarter. Mountaineer Partners Management LLC now owns 11,933,126 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $595,702,000 after buying an additional 11,687,982 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 142.5% in the 4th quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 4,279,517 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $162,964,000 after buying an additional 2,515,103 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 9.5% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 27,310,294 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $1,348,522,000 after buying an additional 2,366,187 shares in the last quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 423.5% in the 3rd quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 2,788,111 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $139,183,000 after buying an additional 2,255,529 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 2.4% in the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 59,409,395 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $2,965,717,000 after buying an additional 1,392,494 shares in the last quarter. 80.77% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have issued reports on FCX. Argus lowered shares of Freeport-McMoRan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Jefferies Financial Group lowered shares of Freeport-McMoRan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $48.00 to $40.00 in a report on Friday, January 24th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered shares of Freeport-McMoRan from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $51.00 to $46.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Scotiabank reduced their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $48.00 to $45.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 24th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets reduced their target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $54.00 to $50.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, January 24th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $51.46.

Freeport-McMoRan Trading Down 5.1 %

Shares of FCX stock opened at $36.97 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $38.53 and its 200-day simple moving average is $42.71. The firm has a market cap of $53.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.66, a PEG ratio of 0.86 and a beta of 1.85. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. has a 1-year low of $34.89 and a 1-year high of $55.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 2.42 and a quick ratio of 1.18.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 23rd. The natural resource company reported $0.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.36 by ($0.05). Freeport-McMoRan had a return on equity of 7.50% and a net margin of 7.42%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Freeport-McMoRan Inc. will post 1.68 EPS for the current year.

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.