Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) Receives $12.03 Consensus Price Target from Analysts

Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) have received an average recommendation of “Hold” from the seven ratings firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have given a hold recommendation, two have issued a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $11.53.

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on CLF. B. Riley restated a “buy” rating and set a $17.00 price target (down previously from $20.00) on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a report on Wednesday, April 23rd. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Cleveland-Cliffs from $7.50 to $8.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price objective on Cleveland-Cliffs from $13.00 to $11.25 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, May 12th. Finally, Glj Research downgraded Cleveland-Cliffs from a “strong-buy” rating to a “strong sell” rating and set a $3.91 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, May 28th.

Insider Transactions at Cleveland-Cliffs

In related news, EVP James D. Graham sold 120,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.85, for a total transaction of $822,000.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 492,249 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,371,905.65. The trade was a 19.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 1.76% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Cleveland-Cliffs by 5.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 48,751,789 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $458,267,000 after acquiring an additional 2,556,332 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 3.1% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 21,247,426 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $199,724,000 after purchasing an additional 647,282 shares during the period. Slate Path Capital LP increased its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 35.4% during the fourth quarter. Slate Path Capital LP now owns 16,208,000 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $152,355,000 after purchasing an additional 4,239,000 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,466,747 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $79,611,000 after purchasing an additional 264,078 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp increased its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 20.1% in the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 7,382,769 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $69,398,000 after buying an additional 1,236,247 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 67.68% of the company’s stock.

Cleveland-Cliffs Stock Down 0.7%

CLF stock opened at $6.93 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $7.40 and its 200-day simple moving average is $8.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.17, a current ratio of 2.13 and a quick ratio of 0.64. Cleveland-Cliffs has a 52-week low of $5.63 and a 52-week high of $16.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.43 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.84 and a beta of 1.85.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, May 7th. The mining company reported ($0.92) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.78) by ($0.14). Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative net margin of 6.35% and a negative return on equity of 12.84%. The business had revenue of $4.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.71 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.18 EPS. Cleveland-Cliffs’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.79 EPS 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.