News Co. (NASDAQ:NWSA) Given Consensus Rating of “Buy” by Brokerages

Shares of News Co. (NASDAQ:NWSA) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Buy” from the four ratings firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating. The average twelve-month price objective among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $29.50.

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. TheStreet upgraded shares of News from a “c+” rating to a “b” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 7th. Macquarie raised shares of News from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 8th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of News from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 19th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On News

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of News by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 55,393,232 shares of the company’s stock worth $836,992,000 after acquiring an additional 536,547 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. raised its stake in News by 0.8% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 25,216,349 shares of the company’s stock valued at $558,541,000 after purchasing an additional 210,486 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of News by 6.5% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 18,581,500 shares of the company’s stock worth $362,339,000 after acquiring an additional 1,128,531 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of News by 0.7% in the first quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,545,192 shares of the company’s stock worth $147,262,000 after purchasing an additional 62,490 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of News by 35.6% in the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 7,262,494 shares of the company’s stock worth $160,865,000 after purchasing an additional 1,908,096 shares during the last quarter. 66.97% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

News Trading Down 0.4 %

News stock opened at $26.18 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $25.70 and a 200 day moving average price of $23.18. News has a 52 week low of $16.35 and a 52 week high of $28.00. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33, a quick ratio of 1.33 and a current ratio of 1.44. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 65.45 and a beta of 1.33.

News (NASDAQ:NWSA) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The company reported $0.26 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.20 by $0.06. The company had revenue of $2.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.56 billion. News had a net margin of 2.29% and a return on equity of 4.14%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.14 EPS. Research analysts forecast that News will post 0.72 EPS for the current year.

News Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a Semi-Annual dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 10th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 13th will be given a $0.10 dividend. This represents a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 12th. News’s payout ratio is presently 50.00%.

About News

News Corporation, a media and information services company, creates and distributes authoritative and engaging content, and other products and services for consumers and businesses worldwide. It operates in six segments: Digital Real Estate Services, Subscription Video Services, Dow Jones, Book Publishing, News Media, and Other.