MP Materials (NYSE:MP) Shares Down 2.9% – Time to Sell?

MP Materials Corp. (NYSE:MP) dropped 2.9% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $48.88 and last traded at $49.21. Approximately 4,419,375 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 32% from the average session volume of 6,528,590 shares. The stock had previously closed at $50.68.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on MP. DA Davidson reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $82.00 price objective on shares of MP Materials in a research report on Monday, August 24th. Barclays cut 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 report on Thursday, July 16th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of MP Materials from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Saturday, July 25th. Needham & Company LLC decreased their target price on shares of MP Materials from $81.00 to $73.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 22nd. Finally, Citigroup restated a “positive” rating on shares of MP Materials in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $78.21.

MP Materials Price Performance

The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $51.22 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $56.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a quick ratio of 8.56 and a current ratio of 9.51. The company has a market capitalization of $8.76 billion, a PE ratio of -144.73 and a beta of 1.94.

MP Materials (NYSE:MP) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The company reported ($0.01) EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of ($0.01). The business had revenue of $108.49 million during 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 firm’s quarterly revenue was up 89.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted ($0.13) EPS. Equities analysts forecast that MP Materials Corp. will post -0.12 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Norges Bank bought a new position in MP Materials in the 4th quarter worth $82,531,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in MP Materials during the second quarter valued at about $65,230,000. Amundi grew its position in shares of MP Materials by 260.2% in the first quarter. Amundi now owns 385,001 shares of the company’s stock valued at $18,580,000 after purchasing an additional 278,126 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in shares of MP Materials by 32.4% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 919,083 shares of the company’s stock valued at $44,355,000 after purchasing an additional 225,009 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of MP Materials by 8.4% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,544,743 shares of the company’s stock worth $128,587,000 after purchasing an additional 197,375 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 52.55% of the company’s stock.

MP Materials Company Profile

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.