Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) Raises Dividend to $0.15 Per Share

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, December 18th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, January 15th will be given a dividend of 0.15 per share by the natural resource company on Monday, February 3rd. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, January 15th. This is a positive change from Freeport-McMoRan’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.08.

Freeport-McMoRan has increased its dividend by an average of 81.7% annually over the last three years. Freeport-McMoRan has a payout ratio of 14.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Freeport-McMoRan to earn $2.06 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.30 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 14.6%.

Freeport-McMoRan Trading Down 1.2 %

FCX opened at $38.24 on Friday. Freeport-McMoRan has a 52 week low of $36.26 and a 52 week high of $55.24. The company has a quick ratio of 1.30, a current ratio of 2.33 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $44.72 and a 200-day simple moving average of $45.83. The firm has a market cap of $54.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.91, a P/E/G ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.86.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The natural resource company reported $0.38 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by $0.01. Freeport-McMoRan had a return on equity of 7.40% and a net margin of 7.81%. The company had revenue of $6.79 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $6.45 billion. Freeport-McMoRan’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.39 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Freeport-McMoRan will post 1.49 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on FCX shares. Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $60.00 to $58.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, September 19th. StockNews.com downgraded Freeport-McMoRan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 26th. Scotiabank lowered their price target on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $53.00 to $52.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. UBS Group raised Freeport-McMoRan from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $54.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. Finally, Raymond James boosted their target price on Freeport-McMoRan from $55.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seven have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $53.92.

Freeport-McMoRan Company Profile

Freeport-McMoRan Inc engages in the mining of mineral properties in North America, South America, and Indonesia. It primarily explores for copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, and other metals. The company's assets include the Grasberg minerals district in Indonesia; Morenci, Bagdad, Safford, Sierrita, and Miami in Arizona; Chino and Tyrone in New Mexico; and Henderson and Climax in Colorado, North America, as well as Cerro Verde in Peru and El Abra in Chile.