Analysts Set Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) Price Target at $72.24

Shares of Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the twenty research firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, ten have given a hold recommendation, eight have assigned a buy recommendation and one has assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $72.8235.

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on NTR shares. 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 research note on Tuesday, February 17th. Royal Bank Of Canada raised their price target on shares of Nutrien from $75.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, February 23rd. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $75.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, February 20th. UBS Group upped 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, Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Nutrien from a “hold (c)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Monday.

Nutrien Stock Performance

NTR stock opened at $74.39 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $67.79 and a 200 day simple moving average of $61.54. Nutrien has a 52 week low of $45.78 and a 52 week high of $78.00. The stock has a market cap of $35.79 billion, a P/E ratio of 15.96 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a current ratio of 1.34.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last posted its earnings results 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 analyst estimates of $5.26 billion. Nutrien had a net margin of 8.43% and a return on equity of 8.41%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 5.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.31 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Nutrien will post 3.72 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 16th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 31st will be issued a dividend of $0.55 per share. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.0%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, March 31st. This is a boost from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.55. Nutrien’s payout ratio is 46.78%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of NTR. Guggenheim Capital LLC boosted its stake in Nutrien by 2.2% during the fourth quarter. Guggenheim Capital LLC now owns 6,628 shares of the company’s stock worth $409,000 after buying an additional 145 shares in the last quarter. Minot DeBlois Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Nutrien by 1.8% during the 4th quarter. Minot DeBlois Advisors LLC now owns 9,032 shares of the company’s stock valued at $557,000 after acquiring an additional 164 shares in the last quarter. Smith Moore & CO. boosted its position in shares of Nutrien by 2.2% during the 3rd quarter. Smith Moore & CO. now owns 7,642 shares of the company’s stock valued at $449,000 after acquiring an additional 168 shares in the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC increased its stake in Nutrien by 21.8% in the fourth quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 983 shares of the company’s stock valued at $61,000 after acquiring an additional 176 shares during the period. Finally, Cascade Investment Advisors Inc. raised its position in Nutrien by 0.6% in the third quarter. Cascade Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 30,855 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,811,000 after purchasing an additional 185 shares in the last quarter. 63.10% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.