Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) Sets New 1-Year High – Time to Buy?

Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:EXE)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $105.33 and last traded at $105.13, with a volume of 132067 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $104.12.

Analyst Ratings Changes

EXE has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $116.00 target price on shares of Chesapeake Energy in a report on Tuesday. Roth Capital raised shares of Chesapeake Energy to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Bank of America began coverage on shares of Chesapeake Energy in a research report on Monday, October 28th. They set a “buy” rating and a $114.00 target price for the company. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $100.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $83.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 25th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $113.50.

Chesapeake Energy Trading Up 1.1 %

The stock has a market cap of $24.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 64.96 and a beta of 0.52. 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 fifty day moving average price is $97.97.

Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The company reported $0.16 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.01 by $0.15. The business had revenue of $648.00 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $708.98 million. Chesapeake Energy had a return on equity of 2.74% and a net margin of 6.07%. The firm’s revenue was down 57.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.09 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Chesapeake Energy Corporation will post 0.86 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Chesapeake Energy Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 4th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, November 14th were given a dividend of $0.575 per share. This represents a $2.30 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.19%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, November 14th. Chesapeake Energy’s dividend payout ratio is presently 141.98%.

Insider Activity

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 stock was sold at an average price of $99.58, for a total value of $4,343,978.34. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 5,201 shares in the company, valued at $517,915.58. This represents a 89.35 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 58.00% of the stock is currently 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.