Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Call Options on Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF)

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) was the target of some unusual options trading on Monday. Stock investors acquired 103,602 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 183% compared to the average volume of 36,584 call options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on CLF shares. Citigroup lowered their price target on Cleveland-Cliffs from $18.00 to $12.50 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Bank of America lowered their price target on Cleveland-Cliffs from $20.00 to $18.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, June 26th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on Cleveland-Cliffs from $15.00 to $13.50 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, B. Riley reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $23.00 price target on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a report on Tuesday, June 25th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cleveland-Cliffs currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $17.56.

Cleveland-Cliffs Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:CLF opened at $13.46 on Wednesday. Cleveland-Cliffs has a fifty-two week low of $10.21 and a fifty-two week high of $22.97. The business has a 50-day moving average of $12.60 and a two-hundred day moving average of $15.18. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.19 and a beta of 1.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a current ratio of 1.87 and a quick ratio of 0.60.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, July 22nd. The mining company reported $0.11 earnings per share for the quarter. Cleveland-Cliffs had a return on equity of 4.94% and a net margin of 0.21%. The company had revenue of $5.09 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.18 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.69 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 14.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cleveland-Cliffs

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in CLF. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position 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 worth $244,794,000 after purchasing an additional 5,621,797 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 49.9% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 6,093,632 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $93,172,000 after purchasing an additional 2,027,757 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 1,893.6% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 1,227,848 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $156,800,000 after purchasing an additional 1,166,258 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 23.6% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 5,597,662 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $86,148,000 after purchasing an additional 1,069,907 shares during the last quarter. Finally, WINTON GROUP Ltd lifted its position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs by 1,650.8% during the 2nd quarter. WINTON GROUP Ltd now owns 874,464 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $13,458,000 after purchasing an additional 824,518 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 67.68% of the company’s stock.

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.