Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) Authorizes Share Buyback Plan

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) announced that its board has authorized a stock buyback program on Monday, April 22nd, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $1.50 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the mining company to buy up to 17.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Cleveland-Cliffs Trading Down 1.3 %

Shares of Cleveland-Cliffs stock traded down $0.24 on Wednesday, hitting $18.31. The stock had a trading volume of 14,390,401 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,757,485. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $20.97 and a 200 day moving average of $19.00. Cleveland-Cliffs has a twelve month low of $13.61 and a twelve month high of $22.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 0.62 and a current ratio of 1.89. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.76, a PEG ratio of 0.72 and a beta of 2.03.

Cleveland-Cliffs (NYSE:CLF) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The mining company reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.19 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $5.20 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.34 billion. Cleveland-Cliffs had a net margin of 1.78% and a return on equity of 8.50%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned ($0.11) EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Cleveland-Cliffs will post 1.66 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on CLF shares. StockNews.com raised shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Wolfe Research reissued an “underperform” rating and issued a $18.00 target price on shares of Cleveland-Cliffs in a report on Tuesday, April 9th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and set a $16.50 target price for the company. in a report on Wednesday, February 28th. TheStreet cut shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “b-” rating to a “c” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. Finally, Argus cut shares of Cleveland-Cliffs from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, February 8th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $20.75.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cleveland-Cliffs news, Director Susan Miranda Green sold 6,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $20.40, for a total transaction of $132,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 90,286 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,841,834.40. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Cleveland-Cliffs news, Director Susan Miranda Green sold 6,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $20.40, for a total transaction of $132,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 90,286 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,841,834.40. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Ron A. Bloom purchased 25,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The shares were purchased at an average price of $20.24 per share, with a total value of $506,000.00. Following the acquisition, the director now owns 27,221 shares in the company, valued at approximately $550,953.04. The disclosure for this purchase can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 221,066 shares of company stock worth $4,464,688. 1.76% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.