Morgan Stanley Begins Coverage on Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE)

Stock analysts at Morgan Stanley started coverage on shares of Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE - Get Free Report) in a report released on Friday, Marketbeat.com reports. The brokerage set an "overweight" rating and a $127.00 price target on the stock. Morgan Stanley's target price suggests a potential upside of 24.33% from the company's current price.

EXE has been the subject of a number of other reports. UBS Group raised Chesapeake Energy from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and boosted their target price for the company from $94.00 to $123.00 in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Citigroup increased their target price on Chesapeake Energy from $100.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $83.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock an "equal weight" rating in a report on Monday, November 25th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $102.00 to $116.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Stephens boosted their price objective on shares of Chesapeake Energy from $85.00 to $86.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, six have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $113.63.

Chesapeake Energy Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ EXE traded down $0.77 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $102.15. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,811,408 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,841,300. The company has a current ratio of 2.00, a quick ratio of 2.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.61 billion, a PE ratio of 63.06 and a beta of 0.52. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $97.29. Chesapeake Energy has a one year low of $69.12 and a one year high of $105.00.

Chesapeake Energy (NASDAQ:EXE - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The company reported $0.16 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.01 by $0.15. The firm had revenue of $648.00 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $708.98 million. Chesapeake Energy had a net margin of 6.07% and a return on equity of 2.74%. The business's quarterly revenue was down 57.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.09 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Chesapeake Energy will post 0.86 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Chesapeake Energy

In other news, Director Catherine A. Kehr sold 43,623 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $99.58, for a total transaction of $4,343,978.34. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 5,201 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $517,915.58. This represents a 89.35 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 58.00% of the stock is currently owned by corporate 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.