News (NASDAQ:NWSA) Announces Earnings Results

News (NASDAQ:NWSA) released its earnings results on Wednesday. The company reported $0.28 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.02, Zacks reports. News had a return on equity of 7.09% and a net margin of 6.35%. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.22 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 6.4% on a year-over-year basis.

News Price Performance

News stock traded up $1.10 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $30.56. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 6,285,724 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,321,447. News has a 12 month low of $22.20 and a 12 month high of $31.66. The company has a quick ratio of 1.51, a current ratio of 1.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.22. The company has a market capitalization of $16.53 billion, a PE ratio of 29.67 and a beta of 1.01. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $29.75 and its 200-day moving average price is $26.95.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently issued reports on NWSA. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on News from $36.00 to $38.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 21st. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $35.00 target price on shares of News in a research report on Thursday, August 6th. Weiss Ratings raised News from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Monday, October 12th. Wall Street Zen cut News from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, October 24th. Finally, Zacks Research downgraded shares of News from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, August 7th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, News currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $37.80.

News Company Profile

News Corp is a global media and information-services company whose Class A common stock trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol NWSA. The company operates a portfolio of businesses spanning digital and print publishing, subscription products, professional information, real estate services and book publishing.

Its principal businesses include Dow Jones, which provides financial news, data, research and professional information through publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s; News Corp Australia and News UK, which operate newspapers and digital news platforms; and HarperCollins Publishers, which publishes fiction, nonfiction, educational and religious titles.