B2Gold (NYSE:BTG) Stock Price Down 2% After Analyst Downgrade

B2Gold Corp. (NYSE:BTG) shares traded down 2% during mid-day trading on Wednesday after CIBC lowered their price target on the stock from $3.70 to $3.30. CIBC currently has a neutral rating on the stock. B2Gold traded as low as $2.43 and last traded at $2.46. 5,396,025 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 62% from the average session volume of 14,310,913 shares. The stock had previously closed at $2.51.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently commented on the company. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and set a $3.75 target price on shares of B2Gold in a report on Tuesday, September 17th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on B2Gold from $4.00 to $5.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 4th. Cibc World Mkts downgraded B2Gold from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. StockNews.com downgraded B2Gold from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, November 8th. Finally, Bank of America downgraded B2Gold from a “buy” rating to an “underperform” rating in a report on Tuesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $4.02.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On B2Gold

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. E&G Advisors LP acquired a new position in shares of B2Gold in the 3rd quarter valued at $31,000. Private Advisor Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of B2Gold in the 3rd quarter valued at $33,000. Flow Traders U.S. LLC acquired a new position in shares of B2Gold in the 3rd quarter valued at $35,000. HighTower Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of B2Gold in the 3rd quarter valued at $36,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. lifted its stake in shares of B2Gold by 72.1% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 13,755 shares of the company’s stock valued at $42,000 after purchasing an additional 5,764 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 61.40% of the company’s stock.

B2Gold Trading Down 2.5 %

The company has a 50 day moving average of $2.65 and a 200-day moving average of $2.88. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a current ratio of 1.83. The stock has a market cap of $3.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.26 and a beta of 1.09.

B2Gold (NYSE:BTG) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $0.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.05 by ($0.03). B2Gold had a positive return on equity of 7.53% and a negative net margin of 38.42%. The firm had revenue of $448.23 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $449.28 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.05 EPS. B2Gold’s revenue was down 6.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that B2Gold Corp. will post 0.23 earnings per share for the current year.

B2Gold Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Monday, December 2nd were issued a dividend of $0.04 per share. This represents a $0.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 6.72%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 2nd. B2Gold’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -28.57%.

B2Gold Company Profile

B2Gold Corp. operates as a gold producer company. It operates the Fekola Mine in Mali, the Masbate Mine in the Philippines, and the Otjikoto Mine in Namibia. The company also has an 100% interest in the Gramalote gold project in Colombia; 24% interest in the Calibre Mining Corp.; and approximately 19% interest in BeMetals Corp.