Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) Upgraded by Wall Street Zen to Buy Rating

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report published on Saturday.

NTR has been the topic of a number of other reports. Raymond James Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $68.00 to $74.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 20th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Nutrien from a “hold (c)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, March 2nd. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Nutrien from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 3rd. Royal Bank Of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Nutrien from $75.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. Finally, Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Nutrien from $75.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 18th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, eight have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $77.33.

Nutrien Price Performance

Shares of Nutrien stock opened at $75.41 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $36.27 billion, a PE ratio of 16.18 and a beta of 0.69. Nutrien has a 12-month low of $45.78 and a 12-month high of $85.36. The company has a quick ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $73.70 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $64.59.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 18th. The company reported $0.83 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by ($0.04). The firm had revenue of $5.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.26 billion. Nutrien had a net margin of 8.43% and a return on equity of 8.41%. Nutrien’s revenue was up 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.31 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Nutrien will post 3.72 EPS for the current year.

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 16th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 31st will be paid a dividend of $0.55 per share. This is a positive change from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.55. This represents a $2.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 31st. Nutrien’s payout ratio is 47.21%.

Institutional Trading of Nutrien

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in Nutrien by 440.2% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 16,338,606 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,008,713,000 after acquiring an additional 13,313,817 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Nutrien during the fourth quarter valued at $412,635,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 19.1% during the third quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 14,221,381 shares of the company’s stock valued at $834,962,000 after acquiring an additional 2,276,651 shares in the last quarter. TD Asset Management Inc raised its position in shares of Nutrien by 21.2% in the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 8,928,534 shares of the company’s stock worth $551,821,000 after purchasing an additional 1,559,673 shares during the last quarter. Finally, OMERS ADMINISTRATION Corp raised its position in shares of Nutrien by 5,891.2% in the 4th quarter. OMERS ADMINISTRATION Corp now owns 1,240,184 shares of the company’s stock worth $76,650,000 after purchasing an additional 1,219,484 shares during the last quarter. 63.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Nutrien Company Profile

Nutrien Ltd. is a global fertilizer and agricultural-services company headquartered in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. The company is publicly traded and operates across the farm input value chain, combining upstream fertilizer production with a broad retail and services platform aimed at supporting crop production worldwide. Nutrien’s business model integrates the manufacture and distribution of crop nutrients with on-the-ground agronomic support for growers and agricultural businesses.

Nutrien produces and supplies the three primary fertilizer nutrients—potash, nitrogen and phosphate—through its wholesale operations, and markets a wide range of crop inputs including seeds and crop protection products.