Agnico Eagle Mines Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:AEM)

Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE:AEM) (TSE:AEM) was the target of unusually large options trading on Friday. Stock investors acquired 11,563 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 69% compared to the average daily volume of 6,842 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Brighton Jones LLC grew its holdings in Agnico Eagle Mines by 11.5% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 3,216 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $252,000 after purchasing an additional 331 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Agnico Eagle Mines by 36.4% during the 1st quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 19,829 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $2,150,000 after buying an additional 5,293 shares in the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC lifted its position in shares of Agnico Eagle Mines by 57.2% during the 2nd quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,188 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $379,000 after buying an additional 1,160 shares in the last quarter. Rhumbline Advisers grew its stake in shares of Agnico Eagle Mines by 8.0% during the 2nd quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 1,810 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $215,000 after acquiring an additional 134 shares during the period. Finally, EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Agnico Eagle Mines by 25.2% during the 2nd quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 929 shares of the mining company’s stock valued at $110,000 after acquiring an additional 187 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.34% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AEM has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Scotiabank dropped their price target on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from $278.00 to $260.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, July 14th. TD boosted their price objective on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from $251.00 to $252.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 21st. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Friday, July 17th. Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from $210.00 to $188.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. Finally, Citigroup cut their target price on shares of Agnico Eagle Mines from $256.00 to $200.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, July 27th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $226.00.

Agnico Eagle Mines Stock Performance

NYSE:AEM traded up $11.79 on Friday, hitting $179.71. The stock had a trading volume of 2,198,628 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,703,955. The stock has a market cap of $91.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 0.60. The company has a quick ratio of 2.02, a current ratio of 2.86 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $155.81 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $187.98. Agnico Eagle Mines has a 52-week low of $130.04 and a 52-week high of $255.24.

Agnico Eagle Mines (NYSE:AEM) (TSE:AEM) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The mining company reported $3.05 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.89 by $0.16. Agnico Eagle Mines had a net margin of 40.44% and a return on equity of 22.04%. The firm had revenue of $3.77 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.78 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.94 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 35.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Agnico Eagle Mines will post 11.69 earnings per share for the current year.

Agnico Eagle Mines Company Profile

Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM) is a Canadian-based senior gold producer headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. The company is principally engaged in the exploration, development, production and reclamation of gold-bearing properties. Agnico Eagle pursues both greenfield and brownfield exploration to expand its resource base and operates a portfolio of producing mines and development projects to generate long-life gold production.

Its core business activities span the full mining lifecycle: grassroots and advanced-stage exploration, prefeasibility and feasibility studies, mine construction, underground and open-pit mining, ore processing and metal recovery, and post-mining reclamation and closure.