News (NASDAQ:NWSA) Cut to “Buy” at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen lowered shares of News (NASDAQ:NWSA) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research note published on Saturday morning,Wall Street Zen reports.

NWSA has been the topic of several other research reports. Raymond James Financial started coverage on News in a research note on Monday, October 19th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $35.00 price target on the stock. Weiss Ratings upgraded News from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research note on Monday, October 12th. Zacks Research lowered News from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $35.00 price objective on shares of News in a report on Thursday, August 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of News from $36.00 to $38.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, August 21st. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $37.80.

News Price Performance

NASDAQ NWSA opened at $30.59 on Friday. News has a fifty-two week low of $22.20 and a fifty-two week high of $31.66. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $29.79 and its two-hundred day moving average is $26.85. The firm has a market cap of $16.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.70 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22, a current ratio of 1.62 and a quick ratio of 1.51.

News (NASDAQ:NWSA) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.21 by $0.14. News had a net margin of 6.35% and a return on equity of 7.09%. The company had revenue of $2.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.25 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.19 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that News will post 1.30 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

News Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 7th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, September 9th were issued a dividend of $0.10 per share. This represents a yield of 68.0%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, September 9th. News’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 19.42%.

Institutional Trading of News

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. bought a new stake in shares of News in the third quarter worth $79,840,000. Metropolis Capital Ltd grew its position in News by 26.4% in the first quarter. Metropolis Capital Ltd now owns 8,835,157 shares of the company’s stock valued at $220,260,000 after purchasing an additional 1,843,900 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE increased its stake in News by 80.9% in the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 4,069,041 shares of the company’s stock valued at $101,441,000 after buying an additional 1,819,652 shares during the last quarter. Sei Investments Co. increased its stake in News by 120.6% in the 1st quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 2,326,616 shares of the company’s stock valued at $58,002,000 after buying an additional 1,272,083 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Quantinno Capital Management LP lifted its position in News by 174.3% during the 1st quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 1,911,329 shares of the company’s stock worth $47,649,000 after buying an additional 1,214,648 shares in the last quarter. 66.97% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About News

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.