Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC Grows Stock Position in News Corporation $NWSA

Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC increased its stake in shares of News Corporation (NASDAQ:NWSA) by 156.7% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 34,443 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 21,025 shares during the quarter. Focus Partners Advisor Solutions LLC’s holdings in News were worth $1,024,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in News by 1.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 51,764,497 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,409,030,000 after buying an additional 812,180 shares in the last quarter. Independent Franchise Partners LLP lifted its position in News by 2.2% during the first quarter. Independent Franchise Partners LLP now owns 27,189,590 shares of the company’s stock worth $740,101,000 after buying an additional 572,331 shares in the last quarter. Dodge & Cox lifted its position in News by 18.7% during the first quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 13,846,298 shares of the company’s stock worth $376,896,000 after buying an additional 2,183,613 shares in the last quarter. 59 North Capital Management LP lifted its position in News by 24.4% during the first quarter. 59 North Capital Management LP now owns 11,147,654 shares of the company’s stock worth $303,439,000 after buying an additional 2,185,542 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Metropolis Capital Ltd lifted its position in News by 15.1% during the second quarter. Metropolis Capital Ltd now owns 5,694,353 shares of the company’s stock worth $169,236,000 after buying an additional 747,744 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 66.97% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NWSA has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on News from $38.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 20th. Macquarie reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $32.70 target price on shares of News in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. Zacks Research cut News from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 23rd. Finally, Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of News in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seven have assigned a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $38.62.

News Trading Up 1.6%

Shares of NASDAQ NWSA opened at $26.75 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $15.11 billion, a PE ratio of 12.86 and a beta of 1.17. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $28.72 and a 200-day simple moving average of $28.48. News Corporation has a twelve month low of $23.38 and a twelve month high of $31.61. The company has a current ratio of 1.84, a quick ratio of 1.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.21.

News (NASDAQ:NWSA) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 5th. The company reported $0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.19. The firm had revenue of $2.11 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.09 billion. News had a return on equity of 5.66% and a net margin of 13.21%.News’s revenue was up .8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.17 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that News Corporation will post 0.94 earnings per share for the current year.

News Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a half year 25 dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, October 8th. Investors of record on Wednesday, September 10th were issued a $0.10 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, September 10th. This represents a yield of 70.0%. News’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 9.62%.

About News

News Corporation, a media and information services company, creates and distributes authoritative and engaging content, and other products and services for consumers and businesses worldwide. It operates through six segments: Digital Real Estate Services, Subscription Video Services, Dow Jones, Book Publishing, News Media, and Other.