Weiss Ratings Reaffirms “Buy (B)” Rating for News (NASDAQ:NWSA)

News (NASDAQ:NWSA)‘s stock had its “buy (b)” rating reissued by investment analysts at Weiss Ratings in a research report issued to clients and investors on Saturday,Weiss Ratings reports.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Macquarie reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $32.70 price target on shares of News in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. Zacks Research lowered News from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on News from $38.00 to $40.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have given a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, News presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $38.62.

News Trading Down 0.3%

Shares of NWSA opened at $26.32 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.72, a current ratio of 1.84 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21. News has a 12-month low of $23.38 and a 12-month high of $31.61. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.87 billion, a PE ratio of 12.65 and a beta of 1.17. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $28.78 and its 200-day simple moving average is $28.46.

News (NASDAQ:NWSA) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.19. News had a return on equity of 5.66% and a net margin of 13.21%.The business had revenue of $2.11 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.09 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.17 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that News will post 0.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On News

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of News by 0.8% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 52,171,790 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,550,546,000 after purchasing an additional 407,293 shares during the period. Independent Franchise Partners LLP raised its position in shares of News by 7.3% during the second quarter. Independent Franchise Partners LLP now owns 29,170,531 shares of the company’s stock worth $866,948,000 after purchasing an additional 1,980,941 shares during the period. Dodge & Cox raised its position in shares of News by 18.7% during the first quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 13,846,298 shares of the company’s stock worth $376,896,000 after purchasing an additional 2,183,613 shares during the period. 59 North Capital Management LP raised its position in shares of News by 13.5% during the second quarter. 59 North Capital Management LP now owns 12,650,867 shares of the company’s stock worth $375,984,000 after purchasing an additional 1,503,213 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of News by 2.1% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 10,154,121 shares of the company’s stock worth $300,578,000 after purchasing an additional 208,692 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 66.97% of the company’s stock.

News Company Profile

News Corporation, a media and information services company, creates and distributes authoritative and engaging content, and other products and services for consumers and businesses worldwide. It operates through six segments: Digital Real Estate Services, Subscription Video Services, Dow Jones, Book Publishing, News Media, and Other.