MP Materials (NYSE:MP) Shares Up 6% – Time to Buy?

MP Materials Corp. (NYSE:MP)’s share price traded up 6% during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $50.65 and last traded at $50.09. 5,277,771 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 19% from the average session volume of 6,507,746 shares. The stock had previously closed at $47.26.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on MP. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of MP Materials from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, July 25th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of MP Materials in a research note on Friday, July 17th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on MP Materials from $75.00 to $60.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 29th. Citigroup reiterated a “positive” rating on shares of MP Materials in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. Finally, DA Davidson reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $82.00 price target on shares of MP Materials in a report on Monday, August 24th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, MP Materials has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $76.58.

MP Materials Trading Up 6.0%

The company has a current ratio of 9.51, a quick ratio of 8.56 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. The stock has a market cap of $8.92 billion, a P/E ratio of -147.32 and a beta of 1.94. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $50.97 and its 200 day simple moving average is $56.09.

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. EMC Capital Management bought a new stake in shares of MP Materials during the fourth quarter valued at about $25,000. REAP Financial Group LLC bought a new position in MP Materials in the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Toth Financial Advisory Corp increased its stake in MP Materials by 73.3% during the 2nd quarter. Toth Financial Advisory Corp now owns 520 shares of the company’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 220 shares during the period. University of Texas Texas AM Investment Management Co. bought a new stake in shares of MP Materials during the 4th quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, Markowski Investments bought a new stake in shares of MP Materials during the 2nd quarter worth about $43,000. Institutional investors own 52.55% of the company’s stock.

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.