Cleveland-Cliffs Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NYSE:CLF)

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) was the target of unusually large options trading on Thursday. Stock investors purchased 76,612 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 94% compared to the average daily volume of 39,592 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have issued reports on CLF shares. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. StockNews.com cut Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Citigroup dropped their price target on Cleveland-Cliffs from $18.00 to $12.50 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on Cleveland-Cliffs from $15.00 to $13.50 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $17.56.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cleveland-Cliffs

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew 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 worth $244,794,000 after purchasing 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 valued at $330,665,000 after buying an additional 3,110,651 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC increased its position in Cleveland-Cliffs by 232.4% during the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Cleveland-Cliffs by 49.9% in 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 during the last quarter. Finally, Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. acquired a new stake in Cleveland-Cliffs in the third quarter worth about $22,122,000. 67.68% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Cleveland-Cliffs Price Performance

Cleveland-Cliffs stock opened at $11.89 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 1.85 and a quick ratio of 0.55. The stock has a market cap of $5.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.26 and a beta of 1.97. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $12.63 and a two-hundred day moving average of $14.14. Cleveland-Cliffs has a 1 year low of $10.21 and a 1 year high of $22.97.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last posted its quarterly 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). The firm had revenue of $4.57 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.72 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative return on equity of 0.59% and a negative net margin of 2.31%. Cleveland-Cliffs’s quarterly revenue was down 18.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.54 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.4 earnings per share for the current year.

Cleveland-Cliffs Company Profile

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.