MP Materials (NYSE:MP) Stock Price Down 1.5% – Time to Sell?

MP Materials Corp. (NYSE:MP)’s stock price traded down 1.5% on Friday . The company traded as low as $50.33 and last traded at $50.5680. Approximately 4,817,720 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 26% from the average daily volume of 6,550,131 shares. The stock had previously closed at $51.32.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on MP. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft dropped their price target on shares of MP Materials from $70.00 to $61.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 9th. Barclays lowered their target price on shares of MP Materials from $69.00 to $65.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 16th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of MP Materials in a report on Friday, July 17th. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of MP Materials in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded MP Materials from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Saturday, July 25th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have given a Buy rating and two have given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $78.21.

MP Materials Stock Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 8.56, a current ratio of 9.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $51.27 and a 200-day simple moving average of $56.46. The stock has a market capitalization of $9.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -148.73 and a beta of 1.94.

MP Materials (NYSE:MP) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported ($0.01) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $108.49 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $96.89 million. MP Materials had a negative return on equity of 1.21% and a negative net margin of 19.85%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 89.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned ($0.13) EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that MP Materials Corp. will post -0.12 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On MP Materials

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd boosted its position in shares of MP Materials by 7.2% during the 3rd quarter. Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd now owns 14,861,212 shares of the company’s stock worth $996,741,000 after purchasing an additional 1,000,000 shares in the last quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System increased its position in MP Materials by 5,523.6% in the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 9,225,687 shares of the company’s stock valued at $516,731,000 after buying an additional 9,061,633 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in MP Materials by 13.2% in the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,597,885 shares of the company’s stock valued at $333,325,000 after buying an additional 769,517 shares in the last quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets raised its stake in MP Materials by 76.3% during the 2nd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 2,921,542 shares of the company’s stock worth $97,200,000 after buying an additional 1,264,243 shares during the period. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp raised its stake in MP Materials by 71.6% during the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 2,834,914 shares of the company’s stock worth $143,220,000 after buying an additional 1,183,307 shares during the period. 52.55% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About MP Materials

MP Materials Corp. is a rare earth materials company that owns and operates the Mountain Pass rare earth mine and processing facility in California. The site is one of the largest rare earth production facilities in the Western Hemisphere and produces rare earth concentrate, with an emphasis on neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr), materials used in high-performance permanent magnets.

The company is expanding its operations beyond mining and concentrate production into separated rare earth products and magnet manufacturing.