Cleveland-Cliffs Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NYSE:CLF)

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF - Get Free Report) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Traders acquired 76,612 call options on the company. This is an increase of 94% compared to the typical daily volume of 39,592 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cleveland-Cliffs

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 13.7% during the 3rd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 25,893,879 shares of the mining company's stock worth $330,665,000 after acquiring an additional 3,110,651 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 54.7% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 15,906,597 shares of the mining company's stock valued at $244,794,000 after buying an additional 5,621,797 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 49.9% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 6,093,632 shares of the mining company's stock worth $93,172,000 after buying an additional 2,027,757 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its stake in Cleveland-Cliffs by 23.6% in the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 5,597,662 shares of the mining company's stock valued at $86,148,000 after buying an additional 1,069,907 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 3.3% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 3,751,153 shares of the mining company's stock valued at $47,902,000 after acquiring an additional 121,389 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 67.68% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on CLF shares. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $15.00 to $13.50 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, September 18th. Citigroup reduced their price target on Cleveland-Cliffs from $18.00 to $12.50 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 10th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Cleveland-Cliffs from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have assigned a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $17.56.

Cleveland-Cliffs Stock Up 2.0 %

CLF stock traded up $0.23 during trading on Thursday, reaching $11.89. 7,972,389 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 10,325,324. The company has a current ratio of 1.85, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. Cleveland-Cliffs has a twelve month low of $10.21 and a twelve month high of $22.97. The firm's 50 day moving average is $12.63 and its 200 day moving average is $14.14. The firm has a market cap of $5.87 billion, a P/E ratio of -12.26 and a beta of 1.97.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The mining company reported ($0.33) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.31) by ($0.02). The business had revenue of $4.57 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.72 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative return on equity of 0.59% and a negative net margin of 2.31%. The company's revenue was down 18.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.54 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.4 EPS for the current year.

About Cleveland-Cliffs

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.