Chesapeake Energy’s (EXE) “Outperform” Rating Reiterated at Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank of Canada reissued their outperform rating on shares of Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) in a research report sent to investors on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $116.00 target price on the stock.

Several other research firms also recently weighed in on EXE. Mizuho boosted their target price on Chesapeake Energy from $110.00 to $128.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $109.00 to $133.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Bank of America initiated coverage on shares of Chesapeake Energy in a report on Monday, October 28th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $114.00 target price for the company. UBS Group upgraded shares of Chesapeake Energy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $94.00 to $123.00 in a report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on shares of Chesapeake Energy in a research note on Friday, January 10th. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $127.00 price objective for the company. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Chesapeake Energy presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $114.73.

Chesapeake Energy Stock Up 2.4 %

EXE stock opened at $107.78 on Tuesday. Chesapeake Energy has a 52 week low of $69.12 and a 52 week high of $108.83. The company has a market capitalization of $24.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 66.53 and a beta of 0.52. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $98.54. The company has a quick ratio of 2.00, a current ratio of 2.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The company reported $0.16 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.01 by $0.15. Chesapeake Energy had a net margin of 6.07% and a return on equity of 2.74%. The firm had revenue of $648.00 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $708.98 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.09 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 57.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts anticipate that Chesapeake Energy will post 0.89 EPS for the current year.

Chesapeake Energy Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 4th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 14th were issued a $0.575 dividend. This represents a $2.30 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.13%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, November 14th. Chesapeake Energy’s dividend payout ratio is 141.98%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Catherine A. Kehr sold 43,623 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $99.58, for a total transaction of $4,343,978.34. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 5,201 shares in the company, valued at approximately $517,915.58. This trade represents a 89.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Insiders own 0.17% of the company’s stock.

Chesapeake Energy Company Profile

Expand Energy Corporation is an independent natural gas producer principally in the United States. Expand Energy Corporation, formerly known as Chesapeake Energy Corporation, is based in OKLAHOMA CITY.