Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) Short Interest Up 22.9% in December

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) saw a significant growth in short interest in December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 54,300,000 shares, a growth of 22.9% from the November 30th total of 44,170,000 shares. Currently, 11.2% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average trading volume of 13,680,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.0 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “buy” rating and a $16.00 target price on the stock. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $12.50 to $11.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $15.00 to $13.50 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $17.22.

Institutional Trading of Cleveland-Cliffs

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 54.7% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 15,906,597 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $244,794,000 after acquiring an additional 5,621,797 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its position in Cleveland-Cliffs by 13.7% during the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 25,893,879 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $330,665,000 after purchasing an additional 3,110,651 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC raised its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 232.4% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 3,113,337 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $39,757,000 after buying an additional 2,176,837 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Cleveland-Cliffs by 49.9% during the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 6,093,632 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $93,172,000 after buying an additional 2,027,757 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. purchased a new stake in Cleveland-Cliffs during the third quarter worth approximately $22,122,000. 67.68% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Cleveland-Cliffs Price Performance

Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs stock traded up $0.10 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $9.40. 11,819,357 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 10,822,583. The company has a quick ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.85 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $11.74 and a 200 day moving average price of $12.99. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -9.69 and a beta of 1.93. Cleveland-Cliffs has a fifty-two week low of $8.99 and a fifty-two week high of $22.97.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last released its earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The mining company reported ($0.33) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.31) by ($0.02). Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative net margin of 2.31% and a negative return on equity of 0.59%. The firm had revenue of $4.57 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.72 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.54 earnings per share. Cleveland-Cliffs’s revenue for the quarter was down 18.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.45 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.