Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO) Downgraded to "Underweight" Rating by Morgan Stanley

Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO - Get Free Report) was downgraded by analysts at Morgan Stanley from an "equal weight" rating to an "underweight" rating in a research report issued on Tuesday, MarketBeat.com reports. They currently have a $99.00 target price on the basic materials company's stock, up from their prior target price of $86.00. Morgan Stanley's price target suggests a potential upside of 2.64% from the stock's previous close.

SCCO has been the subject of several other research reports. Wall Street Zen lowered Southern Copper from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on Southern Copper from $83.50 to $79.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 3rd. Itau BBA Securities raised Southern Copper from an "underperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 11th. UBS Group downgraded Southern Copper from a "buy" rating to a "neutral" rating and set a $105.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Tuesday, July 1st. Finally, Hsbc Global Res upgraded Southern Copper from a "moderate sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research note on Thursday, April 24th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and five have given a hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $91.00.

Southern Copper Trading Down 0.1%

Shares of NYSE SCCO traded down $0.06 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $96.45. The stock had a trading volume of 900,774 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,253,497. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.70, a quick ratio of 3.22 and a current ratio of 3.71. Southern Copper has a 1 year low of $74.11 and a 1 year high of $118.64. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $96.31 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $93.60. The firm has a market cap of $76.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 1.02.

Southern Copper (NYSE:SCCO - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Friday, April 25th. The basic materials company reported $1.19 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.05 by $0.14. The business had revenue of $3.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $3.05 billion. Southern Copper had a net margin of 30.00% and a return on equity of 39.39%. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Southern Copper will post 4.66 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Southern Copper

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of SCCO. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Southern Copper during the fourth quarter valued at $52,738,000. Universal Beteiligungs und Servicegesellschaft mbH purchased a new stake in shares of Southern Copper during the fourth quarter valued at $40,226,000. Jacobs Levy Equity Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Southern Copper during the first quarter valued at $40,338,000. Renaissance Technologies LLC lifted its holdings in Southern Copper by 1,417.7% in the fourth quarter. Renaissance Technologies LLC now owns 407,912 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $37,173,000 after acquiring an additional 381,035 shares during the period. Finally, Nuveen LLC bought a new position in Southern Copper in the first quarter valued at about $34,086,000. 7.94% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Southern Copper

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.