Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) Given Outperform Rating at Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank of Canada reissued their outperform rating on shares of Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) in a report issued on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. Royal Bank of Canada currently has a $116.00 price objective on the stock.

A number of other analysts have also recently commented on EXE. UBS Group upgraded shares of Chesapeake Energy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $94.00 to $123.00 in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price objective on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $83.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 25th. Stephens upped their target price on Chesapeake Energy from $85.00 to $86.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup lifted their price target on Chesapeake Energy from $100.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Roth Capital raised Chesapeake Energy to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $114.73.

Chesapeake Energy Stock Up 2.4 %

NASDAQ:EXE opened at $107.78 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $24.91 billion, a PE ratio of 66.53 and a beta of 0.52. Chesapeake Energy has a 52 week low of $69.12 and a 52 week high of $108.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 2.00 and a quick ratio of 2.00. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $98.54.

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

Chesapeake Energy Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 4th. Investors of record on Thursday, November 14th were issued a dividend of $0.575 per share. This represents a $2.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.13%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, November 14th. Chesapeake Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 141.98%.

Insider Activity at Chesapeake Energy

In other Chesapeake Energy news, Director Catherine A. Kehr sold 43,623 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 5,201 shares in the company, valued at approximately $517,915.58. This represents a 89.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.17% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

About Chesapeake Energy

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.