Share Repurchase Program Authorized by Commercial Metals (NYSE:CMC) Board

Commercial Metals (NYSE:CMC) announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, August 5th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $600.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the basic materials company to reacquire up to 7.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have issued reports on CMC. Bank of America cut their price objective on shares of Commercial Metals from $84.00 to $78.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 9th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Commercial Metals from $77.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, June 26th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded Commercial Metals from a “buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, June 5th. Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of Commercial Metals from $85.00 to $75.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, July 7th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane upgraded shares of Commercial Metals from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $75.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nine have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $79.45.

Commercial Metals Price Performance

CMC stock traded up $3.15 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $75.78. The company had a trading volume of 1,587,907 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,092,918. Commercial Metals has a 1-year low of $51.52 and a 1-year high of $84.87. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $69.88 and a 200-day moving average price of $70.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 2.33 and a quick ratio of 1.54. The company has a market capitalization of $8.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.42 and a beta of 1.52.

Commercial Metals (NYSE:CMC) last released its earnings results on Thursday, June 25th. The basic materials company reported $1.73 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.70 by $0.03. Commercial Metals had a net margin of 6.72% and a return on equity of 15.69%. The firm had revenue of $2.48 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.40 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.74 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 22.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Commercial Metals will post 6.64 earnings per share for the current year.

Commercial Metals Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, July 15th. Shareholders of record on Monday, July 6th were given a dividend of $0.20 per share. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.1%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, July 6th. Commercial Metals’s payout ratio is currently 15.07%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Commercial Metals news, CEO Peter R. Matt bought 8,230 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 10th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $61.30 per share, for a total transaction of $504,499.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the chief executive officer directly owned 181,522 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,127,298.60. This trade represents a 4.75% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.62% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Commercial Metals Company Profile

Commercial Metals Company (NYSE: CMC) is a leading global steel and metal recycler, manufacturer and fabricator based in Irving, Texas. The company operates an integrated network of scrap recycling facilities, electric arc furnace steel mills, metal fabrication plants and distribution centers. Through these operations, Commercial Metals collects and processes ferrous scrap to produce finished steel products and provides recycled metal to a variety of end markets.

In its steelmaking segment, CMC uses electric arc furnace technology to transform recycled scrap into reinforcing bar (rebar), merchant bar, coil and structural products.