October 14, 2018 - BlackRock Inc. grew its stake in Arch Coal Inc (NYSE:ARCH) by 3.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,317,496 shares of the energy company’s stock after purchasing an additional 48,463 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. owned about 6.73% of Arch Coal worth $103,331,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in ARCH. Delek Group Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Arch Coal by 13.0% in the 2nd quarter. Delek Group Ltd. now owns 227,866 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $17,872,000 after acquiring an additional 26,200 shares during the last quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP acquired a new stake in shares of Arch Coal during the 2nd quarter worth about $761,000. Martingale Asset Management L P increased its position in shares of Arch Coal by 18.2% during the 2nd quarter. Martingale Asset Management L P now owns 57,715 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $4,527,000 after purchasing an additional 8,898 shares during the last quarter. Swiss National Bank boosted its holdings in Arch Coal by 3.5% during the 2nd quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 35,300 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $2,769,000 after acquiring an additional 1,200 shares during the period. Finally, Spark Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Arch Coal during the 2nd quarter valued at about $6,666,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 41.05% of the company’s stock.

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Zacks Investment Research lowered Arch Coal from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday. TheStreet raised Arch Coal from a “c” rating to a “b-” rating in a report on Thursday, October 4th. ValuEngine raised Arch Coal from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. B. Riley lifted their price target on Arch Coal from $96.00 to $106.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 19th. Finally, Seaport Global Securities reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Arch Coal in a research report on Tuesday, July 31st. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. The stock has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $103.57.

Arch Coal stock opened at $90.78 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.99 and a beta of 0.34. Arch Coal Inc has a 52 week low of $68.95 and a 52 week high of $102.61. The company has a quick ratio of 2.07, a current ratio of 2.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48.

Arch Coal last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 31st. The energy company reported $2.26 EPS for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters’ consensus estimate of $1.95 by $0.31. The firm had revenue of $592.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $525.37 million. Arch Coal had a return on equity of 39.79% and a net margin of 10.80%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.85 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Arch Coal Inc will post 10.8 EPS for the current year. 

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 31st were paid a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, August 30th. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.76%. Arch Coal’s dividend payout ratio is presently 14.08%.