Retirement Systems of Alabama Has $26.63 Million Stock Holdings in Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF)

Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its position in shares of Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) by 0.2% during the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 497,161 shares of the financial services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 769 shares during the quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama owned approximately 0.24% of Jefferies Financial Group worth $26,633,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in JEF. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Jefferies Financial Group during the fourth quarter valued at about $724,971,000. Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its stake in shares of Jefferies Financial Group by 159.1% during the fourth quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 5,988,746 shares of the financial services provider’s stock valued at $469,518,000 after purchasing an additional 3,677,233 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Jefferies Financial Group by 63.7% during the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 5,381,149 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $421,882,000 after acquiring an additional 2,094,191 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its position in shares of Jefferies Financial Group by 57.4% during the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 3,941,692 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $309,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,437,179 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its position in shares of Jefferies Financial Group by 27.1% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 5,293,767 shares of the financial services provider’s stock worth $415,031,000 after acquiring an additional 1,127,335 shares during the last quarter. 60.88% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley downgraded Jefferies Financial Group from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lowered their price objective for the stock from $75.00 to $41.00 in a research report on Monday, April 7th. Oppenheimer downgraded Jefferies Financial Group from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Jefferies Financial Group from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 13th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on Jefferies Financial Group from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 15th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Jefferies Financial Group presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $62.75.

Jefferies Financial Group Trading Down 0.5%

Shares of JEF stock opened at $52.94 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $10.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.32 and a beta of 1.45. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $49.32 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $61.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.68, a quick ratio of 0.99 and a current ratio of 0.99. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $39.28 and a fifty-two week high of $82.68.

Jefferies Financial Group (NYSE:JEF) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, March 26th. The financial services provider reported $0.60 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.88 by ($0.28). The business had revenue of $1.59 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.93 billion. Jefferies Financial Group had a return on equity of 7.26% and a net margin of 9.31%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.87 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Jefferies Financial Group Inc. will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Jefferies Financial Group Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 29th. Shareholders of record on Monday, May 19th were issued a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, May 19th. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.02%. Jefferies Financial Group’s payout ratio is currently 55.36%.

About Jefferies Financial Group

Jefferies Financial Group Inc operates as an investment banking and capital markets firm in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Investment Banking and Capital Markets, and Asset Management. It provides investment banking, advisory services with respect to mergers or acquisitions, debt financing, restructurings or recapitalizations, and private capital advisory transactions; underwriting and placement services related to corporate debt, municipal bonds, mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities, equity and equity-linked securities, and loan syndication services; and corporate lending services.