Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) Shares Bought by Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS raised its position in Southern Copper Co. (NYSE:SCCO) by 6.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 78,175 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 5,052 shares during the period. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS’s holdings in Southern Copper were worth $7,124,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in SCCO. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted its stake in shares of Southern Copper by 74.6% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 1,402,983 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $162,283,000 after acquiring an additional 599,610 shares during the period. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. lifted its stake in shares of Southern Copper by 115,910.7% in the 3rd quarter. Itau Unibanco Holding S.A. now owns 336,431 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $38,915,000 after acquiring an additional 336,141 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Southern Copper by 10.6% in the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 2,963,572 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $342,796,000 after acquiring an additional 283,562 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Financial Markets lifted its stake in shares of Southern Copper by 1,601.3% in the 3rd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 192,571 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $22,275,000 after acquiring an additional 181,252 shares during the period. Finally, Wealthfront Advisers LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Southern Copper in the 4th quarter worth $15,197,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 7.94% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

SCCO has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Southern Copper from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $92.50 price objective for the company in a research note on Monday, December 2nd. UBS Group upgraded shares of Southern Copper from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Thursday, March 13th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Southern Copper from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $106.30 to $102.00 in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, Scotiabank raised their price objective on shares of Southern Copper from $52.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “sector underperform” rating in a research note on Monday, March 10th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $97.31.

Southern Copper Stock Performance

Shares of SCCO opened at $100.98 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 2.77, a quick ratio of 2.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. The stock has a market cap of $80.39 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.37, a PEG ratio of 1.90 and a beta of 1.12. The company has a 50-day moving average of $94.27 and a two-hundred day moving average of $100.57. Southern Copper Co. has a 12-month low of $84.33 and a 12-month high of $127.34.

Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The basic materials company reported $1.01 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.02 by ($0.01). Southern Copper had a return on equity of 40.27% and a net margin of 29.53%. As a group, research analysts predict that Southern Copper Co. will post 4.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Southern Copper Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 27th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. This is an increase from Southern Copper’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.60. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.77%. Southern Copper’s payout ratio is 64.81%.

Southern Copper Profile

Southern Copper Corporation engages in mining, exploring, smelting, and refining copper and other minerals in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, and Chile. The company is involved in the mining, milling, and flotation of copper ore to produce copper and molybdenum concentrates; smelting of copper concentrates to produce blister and anode copper; refining of anode copper to produce copper cathodes; production of molybdenum concentrate and sulfuric acid; production of refined silver, gold, and other materials; and mining and processing of zinc, copper, molybdenum, silver, gold, and lead.