Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) Short Interest Down 5.9% in August

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (NYSE:CLF) saw a large decline in short interest in August. As of August 31st, there was short interest totalling 39,310,000 shares, a decline of 5.9% from the August 15th total of 41,760,000 shares. Currently, 8.6% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 11,360,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.5 days.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cleveland-Cliffs

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs during the fourth quarter worth $117,585,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of 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 in the last quarter. Peconic Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Cleveland-Cliffs during the fourth quarter worth $42,370,000. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings 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 buying an additional 2,027,757 shares during the period. Finally, Bank of Nova Scotia bought a new position in shares of Cleveland-Cliffs during the 4th quarter worth about $22,937,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 67.68% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on CLF shares. Morgan Stanley decreased 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. Seaport Res Ptn raised Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 27th. B. Riley reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $23.00 price target on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a research report on Tuesday, June 25th. Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $20.00 to $18.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 26th. Finally, Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from $18.00 to $12.50 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 10th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Cleveland-Cliffs has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $17.56.

Cleveland-Cliffs Stock Performance

Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs stock opened at $11.54 on Thursday. Cleveland-Cliffs has a 12 month low of $10.21 and a 12 month high of $22.97. The company has a quick ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 1.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. The stock has a market cap of $5.49 billion, a PE ratio of 15.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 21.57 and a beta of 1.97. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $13.50 and a 200-day simple moving average of $16.63.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, July 22nd. The mining company reported $0.11 EPS for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $5.09 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.18 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs had a return on equity of 4.94% and a net margin of 0.21%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 14.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.69 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cleveland-Cliffs will post 0.01 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.