Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Decreases Stock Holdings in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System decreased its position in Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE:FCX) by 4.4% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 77,300 shares of the natural resource company’s stock after selling 3,600 shares during the quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Freeport-McMoRan were worth $2,944,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of FCX. Mountaineer Partners Management LLC increased its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 4,767.8% during the third quarter. Mountaineer Partners Management LLC now owns 11,933,126 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $595,702,000 after buying an additional 11,687,982 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 142.5% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 4,279,517 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $162,964,000 after buying an additional 2,515,103 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 9.5% during the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 27,310,294 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $1,348,522,000 after buying an additional 2,366,187 shares during the period. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 423.5% during the third quarter. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC now owns 2,788,111 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $139,183,000 after buying an additional 2,255,529 shares during the period. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC increased its position in shares of Freeport-McMoRan by 2.4% during the third quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 59,409,395 shares of the natural resource company’s stock valued at $2,965,717,000 after buying an additional 1,392,494 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 80.77% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently commented on FCX. Raymond James boosted their price objective 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 dropped their price objective on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $48.00 to $45.00 and set a “sector perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 24th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price objective on shares of Freeport-McMoRan from $54.00 to $50.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, January 24th. Sanford C. Bernstein lowered shares of Freeport-McMoRan from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $51.00 to $46.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, Argus lowered shares of Freeport-McMoRan from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $51.46.

Freeport-McMoRan Stock Performance

Shares of FCX opened at $40.28 on Friday. Freeport-McMoRan Inc. has a 12 month low of $34.89 and a 12 month high of $55.24. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $38.98 and a 200-day moving average price of $42.90. The company has a current ratio of 2.42, a quick ratio of 1.18 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The firm has a market cap of $57.87 billion, a PE ratio of 31.22, a P/E/G ratio of 0.81 and a beta of 1.85.

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 23rd. The natural resource company reported $0.31 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.36 by ($0.05). Freeport-McMoRan had a net margin of 7.42% and a return on equity of 7.50%. Equities research analysts predict that Freeport-McMoRan Inc. will post 1.71 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.