Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) Receives $72.24 Consensus Price Target from Brokerages

Shares of Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the twenty research firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating, seven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $72.2353.

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on NTR shares. Bank of America raised their target price on Nutrien from $64.00 to $71.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, February 20th. TD Securities raised their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $80.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 17th. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Nutrien from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 27th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Nutrien in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Finally, Raymond James Financial lifted their price target on shares of Nutrien from $68.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, February 20th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of NTR. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Nutrien by 2.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,463,277 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,386,546,000 after purchasing an additional 479,834 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in shares of Nutrien by 440.2% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 16,338,606 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,008,713,000 after acquiring an additional 13,313,817 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew 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 worth $834,962,000 after purchasing an additional 2,276,651 shares in the last quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Nutrien by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 13,307,283 shares of the company’s stock worth $821,326,000 after purchasing an additional 70,068 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG raised its stake in Nutrien by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 9,798,196 shares of the company’s stock valued at $604,745,000 after purchasing an additional 189,683 shares in the last quarter. 63.10% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Nutrien Price Performance

Nutrien stock opened at $75.07 on Friday. Nutrien has a 52 week low of $45.78 and a 52 week high of $75.73. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $67.31 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $61.28. The stock has a market cap of $36.12 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.11 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a quick ratio of 0.70, a current ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 18th. The company reported $0.83 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $5.12 billion for 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%. The business’s revenue was up 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.31 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that Nutrien will post 3.72 earnings per share for the current year.

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 16th. Investors of record on Tuesday, March 31st will be issued a $0.55 dividend. This is an increase from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.55. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 31st. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.9%. Nutrien’s payout ratio is 46.78%.

About Nutrien

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.