Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.15

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, December 18th,RTT News reports. Shareholders 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 dividend yield of 1.49%. This is a positive change from Freeport-McMoRan’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.08.

Freeport-McMoRan has raised 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 research 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 Stock Down 0.8 %

Shares of Freeport-McMoRan stock traded down $0.33 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $40.29. 720,481 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 12,729,531. The stock has a market cap of $57.89 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.65, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 1.86. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $45.15 and its 200 day moving average price is $45.94. Freeport-McMoRan has a 12-month low of $36.26 and a 12-month high of $55.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a current ratio of 2.33 and a quick ratio of 1.30.

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

About Freeport-McMoRan

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.