Cleveland-Cliffs Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:CLF)

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Stock investors bought 57,175 call options on the company. This is an increase of 35% compared to the average volume of 42,444 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of CLF. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in Cleveland-Cliffs by 54.7% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 15,906,597 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $244,794,000 after purchasing an additional 5,621,797 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its position 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 buying an additional 3,110,651 shares during the period. Barclays PLC grew its holdings in Cleveland-Cliffs by 232.4% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 3,113,337 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $39,757,000 after acquiring an additional 2,176,837 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its position 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 valued at $93,172,000 after acquiring an additional 2,027,757 shares during the period. Finally, Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. bought a new position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs during the third quarter valued at $22,122,000. 67.68% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Cleveland-Cliffs Trading Down 3.5 %

Shares of CLF stock opened at $9.54 on Thursday. Cleveland-Cliffs has a fifty-two week low of $9.51 and a fifty-two week high of $22.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 0.55 and a current ratio of 1.85. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $12.37 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $13.37. The company has a market cap of $4.71 billion, a PE ratio of -9.84 and a beta of 1.92.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last posted its quarterly 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 company had revenue of $4.57 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.72 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs had a negative net margin of 2.31% and a negative return on equity of 0.59%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 18.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.54 earnings per share. Equities analysts predict that Cleveland-Cliffs will post -0.45 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CLF has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. StockNews.com cut shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $15.00 to $13.50 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, September 18th. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 27th. Citigroup cut their price target on Cleveland-Cliffs from $18.00 to $12.50 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group assumed coverage on Cleveland-Cliffs in a research report on Monday, December 2nd. They set a “buy” rating and a $16.00 price target on the stock. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have issued a hold rating, three have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $17.39.

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.