Caxton Associates LLP Purchases New Stake in MFA Financial, Inc. $MFA

Caxton Associates LLP acquired a new position in shares of MFA Financial, Inc. (NYSE:MFA) during the 1st quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 167,318 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock, valued at approximately $1,717,000.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Northern Trust Corp increased its position in shares of MFA Financial by 10.8% during the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,006,842 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $10,260,000 after acquiring an additional 97,945 shares in the last quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV bought a new position in MFA Financial in the 4th quarter valued at about $342,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets acquired a new position in MFA Financial during the 4th quarter valued at about $179,000. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its stake in MFA Financial by 31.2% during the 4th quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 124,317 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock valued at $1,267,000 after purchasing an additional 29,584 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG increased its holdings in MFA Financial by 50.5% during the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 84,502 shares of the real estate investment trust’s stock worth $861,000 after purchasing an additional 28,348 shares in the last quarter. 65.28% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on MFA. Royal Bank Of Canada set a $10.00 target price on MFA Financial and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 28th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods cut MFA Financial from an “outperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $12.00 to $10.00 in a research note on Thursday, July 10th. JMP Securities cut their price objective on shares of MFA Financial from $12.00 to $11.00 and set a “market outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 17th. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of MFA Financial in a research note on Wednesday, September 3rd. Finally, Jones Trading reissued a “hold” rating on shares of MFA Financial in a research report on Monday, August 11th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $12.14.

MFA Financial Price Performance

NYSE MFA opened at $10.34 on Tuesday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $9.63 and its 200-day moving average is $9.73. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.88 and a beta of 1.68. MFA Financial, Inc. has a one year low of $7.85 and a one year high of $13.45.

MFA Financial (NYSE:MFA) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 6th. The real estate investment trust reported $0.24 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.29 by ($0.05). The company had revenue of $61.28 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $59.50 million. MFA Financial had a net margin of 17.62% and a return on equity of 8.61%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.32 EPS. Research analysts expect that MFA Financial, Inc. will post 1.5 EPS for the current fiscal year.

MFA Financial Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, July 31st. Investors of record on Monday, June 30th were issued a $0.36 dividend. This represents a $1.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 13.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 30th. MFA Financial’s payout ratio is 165.52%.

About MFA Financial

MFA Financial, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates as a real estate investment trust in the United States. It invests in residential mortgage securities, including non-agency mortgage-backed securities, agency MBS, and credit risk transfer securities; residential whole loans, including purchased performing loans, purchased credit deteriorated, and non-performing loans; and mortgage servicing rights related assets.