The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Hecla Mining Co. (NYSE:HL). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Basic Materials company by 0.80% to 56.39 million shares with purchase of 0.45 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 9.14% valued currently at $229.51 million. In addition, Van Eck Associates Corp. raised its holdings by 0.73 million to 55.64 million shares. And BlackRock Fund Advisors has lifted its position by 1.74% or 0.7 million shares – to 40.95 million shares.
With over 7.04 million Hecla Mining Co. (HL) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $4.90 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $34.51 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -8.65% and its price on 12/04/23 lost nearly -4.48%. Currently, there are 599.49M common shares owned by the public and among those 574.07M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 10 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for HL have a consensus price objective of $5.87. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $8.75 and a low of $4.25. The average price target is 16.52% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -15.29% over that period. But an upside of 44.0% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $5.75.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 38 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 28 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 1,194,607 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 10 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 212,206 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Hecla Mining Co. are VanEck Gold Miners ETF, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF. VanEck Gold Miners ETF owns 33.36 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $135.79 million. The company bought an additional 0.14 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 5.41% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF bought 0.24 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 18.39 million shares valued at over $74.84 million and representing 2.98% of the shares outstanding. VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF bought 24246.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 18.24 million shares at a value of $74.25 million. VanEck Junior Gold Miners ETF now owns shares totaling to 2.96% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Hecla Mining Co. (NYSE: HL) opened at $5.02, down -$0.11 from a prior closing price of $5.13. However, the script later moved the day high at 5.0200, down -4.48%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 1.03% and 17.57% over the past three months. HL shares are trading -11.73% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance down to -11.88% lower. It has a 12-month low price of $3.55 and touched a high of $6.99 over the same period. HL has an average intraday trading volume of 6.16 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 9.85%, 17.26%, and -3.05% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Hecla Mining Co. (NYSE: HL) shares accounts for 60.58% of the company’s 599.49M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 2.47%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 45.02% and 16.02% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $3.03B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 2.21. The earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at -$0.08. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 3.38% over the week and 4.56% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Hecla Mining Co. (HL) will achieve an EPS of -$0.02 for the current quarter, $0.02 for the next quarter and $0.09 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is -$0.04 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of -$0.01. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.02 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -105.97%, and 2900.14% over the next financial year.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 10 brokerage firm advisors rate Hecla Mining Co. (HL) as a “Strong Buy” at a consensus score of 1.40. Specifically, 8 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 2 of the 10 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the HL, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. ROTH MKM stated their Buy rating for the stock in a research note on October 13, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $4-$4.40.
