New York State Common Retirement Fund Buys 115,886 Shares of AngloGold Ashanti PLC $AU

New York State Common Retirement Fund raised its position in shares of AngloGold Ashanti PLC (NYSE:AU) by 36.7% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 431,857 shares of the mining company’s stock after purchasing an additional 115,886 shares during the quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund’s holdings in AngloGold Ashanti were worth $30,373,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. CoreCap Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of AngloGold Ashanti by 27.3% during the third quarter. CoreCap Advisors LLC now owns 1,006 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $71,000 after buying an additional 216 shares during the period. Farther Finance Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in AngloGold Ashanti by 13.8% in the third quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 1,893 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $133,000 after buying an additional 229 shares during the period. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. boosted its position in AngloGold Ashanti by 30.3% during the second quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,023 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $47,000 after acquiring an additional 238 shares during the last quarter. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB grew its holdings in AngloGold Ashanti by 27.2% during the 3rd quarter. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB now owns 1,257 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $88,000 after acquiring an additional 269 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC raised its position in shares of AngloGold Ashanti by 0.7% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 40,443 shares of the mining company’s stock worth $2,844,000 after acquiring an additional 277 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 36.09% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the company. Scotiabank upped their target price on AngloGold Ashanti from $92.00 to $131.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday. HSBC restated a “reduce” rating and set a $55.00 price target on shares of AngloGold Ashanti in a report on Thursday, October 9th. Roth Mkm lifted their price objective on shares of AngloGold Ashanti from $84.00 to $92.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, December 15th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b-)” rating on shares of AngloGold Ashanti in a research note on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded shares of AngloGold Ashanti from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 23rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, six have assigned a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $95.00.

AngloGold Ashanti Stock Performance

AU opened at $92.77 on Friday. AngloGold Ashanti PLC has a 1-year low of $28.44 and a 1-year high of $115.81. The company has a market cap of $38.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.43 and a beta of 0.58. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $91.23 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $73.30. The company has a current ratio of 2.58, a quick ratio of 1.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21.

AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, November 12th. The mining company reported $1.32 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.34 by ($0.02). AngloGold Ashanti had a return on equity of 24.01% and a net margin of 26.25%.The business had revenue of $2.42 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.53 billion. On average, analysts expect that AngloGold Ashanti PLC will post 3.83 EPS for the current fiscal year.

AngloGold Ashanti Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 28th were issued a dividend of $0.91 per share. This represents a $3.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, November 28th. AngloGold Ashanti’s payout ratio is currently 80.18%.

AngloGold Ashanti Profile

AngloGold Ashanti is a global gold mining company engaged in the exploration, development, production, processing and sale of gold. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company’s core activities span the full mining value chain from greenfield exploration and mine development through to ore processing and rehabilitation. Gold is the primary commodity produced, with individual operations sometimes yielding other by?products depending on local geology and processing methods.

The company was formed in 2004 through the merger of AngloGold and Ashanti Goldfields, creating a diversified international gold producer.