News (NASDAQ:NWSA) Stock Rating Raised to Moderate Buy at Raymond James Financial

Raymond James Financial upgraded shares of News (NASDAQ:NWSA) to a moderate buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Monday morning,Zacks reports.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on NWSA. Weiss Ratings raised News from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Monday, October 12th. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and set a $35.00 price target on shares of News in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. Zacks Research cut News from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, August 7th. Wall Street Zen upgraded News from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, October 3rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on News from $36.00 to $38.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 21st. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $37.80.

News Price Performance

Shares of News stock opened at $30.65 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a current ratio of 1.62 and a quick ratio of 1.51. The company has a market cap of $16.58 billion, a PE ratio of 29.76 and a beta of 0.97. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $29.67 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $27.61. News has a fifty-two week low of $22.20 and a fifty-two week high of $31.66.

News (NASDAQ:NWSA) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.21 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $2.34 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.25 billion. News had a net margin of 6.35% and a return on equity of 7.09%. The business’s revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.19 EPS. Analysts expect that News will post 1.31 EPS for the current year.

News Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 7th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th were paid a $0.10 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, September 9th. This represents a dividend yield of 68.0%. News’s dividend payout ratio is currently 19.42%.

Institutional Trading of News

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Empirical Finance LLC grew its position in News by 3.3% in the second quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 13,861 shares of the company’s stock valued at $344,000 after acquiring an additional 442 shares during the period. Compound Planning Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of News by 5.0% during the first quarter. Compound Planning Inc. now owns 11,184 shares of the company’s stock valued at $279,000 after acquiring an additional 537 shares during the period. Tidal Investments LLC lifted its holdings in shares of News by 1.1% during the second quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 72,008 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,788,000 after acquiring an additional 757 shares during the period. Patton Fund Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of News by 9.6% in the 1st quarter. Patton Fund Management Inc. now owns 9,596 shares of the company’s stock valued at $239,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Turtle Creek Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of News in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. 66.97% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

News Company Profile

News Corp is a global media and information-services company whose Class A common stock trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol NWSA. The company operates a portfolio of businesses spanning digital and print publishing, subscription products, professional information, real estate services and book publishing.

Its principal businesses include Dow Jones, which provides financial news, data, research and professional information through publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s; News Corp Australia and News UK, which operate newspapers and digital news platforms; and HarperCollins Publishers, which publishes fiction, nonfiction, educational and religious titles.