Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) Trading Up 5.8% After Analyst Upgrade

Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) shares traded up 5.8% on Thursday after Jefferies Financial Group upgraded the stock from a hold rating to a buy rating. Jefferies Financial Group now has a $96.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $74.00. Nutrien traded as high as $84.92 and last traded at $83.9030. 2,798,117 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 15% from the average session volume of 3,278,288 shares. The stock had previously closed at $79.31.

A number of other research analysts have also weighed in on NTR. Bank of America raised their price objective on Nutrien from $64.00 to $71.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, February 20th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Nutrien from $75.00 to $85.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Nutrien from $68.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 20th. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $58.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, January 12th. Finally, Raymond James Financial lifted their target price 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. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Nutrien presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $74.12.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Nutrien

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 479,834 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in Nutrien by 440.2% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 16,338,606 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,008,713,000 after buying an additional 13,313,817 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in 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 buying an additional 2,276,651 shares during the period. First Eagle Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in Nutrien by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 13,307,283 shares of the company’s stock valued at $821,326,000 after buying an additional 70,068 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG raised its position in Nutrien by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 9,798,196 shares of the company’s stock worth $604,745,000 after acquiring an additional 189,683 shares during the period. 63.10% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Nutrien Stock Up 5.9%

The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $69.36 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $62.29. The firm has a market capitalization of $40.40 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.02 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 1.34 and a quick ratio of 0.70.

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

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 31st. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.6%. This is a positive change from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.55. Nutrien’s payout ratio is currently 47.21%.

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.