Raymond James Analysts Reduce Earnings Estimates for Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX)

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) – Equities research analysts at Raymond James cut their Q4 2024 earnings per share (EPS) estimates for shares of Freeport-McMoRan in a report released on Tuesday, October 1st. Raymond James analyst B. Macarthur now expects that the natural resource company will post earnings of $0.44 per share for the quarter, down from their previous forecast of $0.47. Raymond James currently has a “Outperform” rating and a $55.00 target price on the stock. The consensus estimate for Freeport-McMoRan’s current full-year earnings is $1.61 per share.

Several other equities research analysts have also commented on FCX. Scotiabank lowered Freeport-McMoRan from a “sector outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and set a $52.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $60.00 target price on shares of Freeport-McMoRan in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. UBS Group raised Freeport-McMoRan from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $54.00 to $55.00 in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. StockNews.com lowered Freeport-McMoRan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on Freeport-McMoRan from $60.00 to $58.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, September 19th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Freeport-McMoRan currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $52.93.

Freeport-McMoRan Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:FCX opened at $50.55 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $44.18 and its 200-day simple moving average is $47.69. The firm has a market capitalization of $72.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.89 and a beta of 1.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30, a current ratio of 2.40 and a quick ratio of 1.34. Freeport-McMoRan has a 12 month low of $32.83 and a 12 month high of $55.24.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The natural resource company reported $0.46 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.39 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $6.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $6 billion. Freeport-McMoRan had a return on equity of 7.60% and a net margin of 7.83%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 15.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.35 EPS.

Freeport-McMoRan Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 1st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, October 15th will be paid a dividend of $0.075 per share. This represents a $0.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.59%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, October 15th. Freeport-McMoRan’s dividend payout ratio is presently 26.55%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 1.0% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 120,698,442 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $5,675,241,000 after purchasing an additional 1,210,833 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 22.0% during the 1st quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 72,896,288 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $3,427,583,000 after purchasing an additional 13,143,562 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 1.8% during the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 55,656,836 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $2,369,312,000 after purchasing an additional 976,592 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 6.9% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 36,882,874 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $1,734,234,000 after purchasing an additional 2,392,800 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Putnam Investments LLC increased its position in Freeport-McMoRan by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. Putnam Investments LLC now owns 16,647,339 shares of the natural resource company’s stock worth $708,677,000 after purchasing an additional 595,395 shares in the last quarter. 80.77% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.