Vanguard Group Inc. Grows Holdings in Nutrien Ltd. $NTR

Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) by 2.2% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 22,463,277 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 479,834 shares during the quarter. Vanguard Group Inc.’s holdings in Nutrien were worth $1,386,546,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 65.1% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 25,224 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,253,000 after acquiring an additional 9,950 shares in the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Nutrien by 6.2% during the first quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 6,907 shares of the company’s stock worth $343,000 after acquiring an additional 404 shares during the period. Focus Partners Wealth purchased a new position in Nutrien in the first quarter worth $516,000. Acadian Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Nutrien in the first quarter worth $54,000. Finally, Prudential Financial Inc. bought a new position in Nutrien in the 2nd quarter valued at $203,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 63.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

NTR has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Barclays raised their target price on Nutrien from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 3rd. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Nutrien from $65.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 16th. Bank of America upgraded shares of Nutrien from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $82.00 price objective for the company in a report on Thursday. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce lowered their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $90.00 to $88.00 and set an “outperformer” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Nutrien from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $74.00 to $96.00 in a research note on Thursday, March 12th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $80.00.

Nutrien Stock Performance

NYSE:NTR opened at $76.03 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $36.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.32 and a beta of 0.69. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $74.85 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $66.52. 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 Ltd. has a 1 year low of $53.03 and a 1 year high of $85.36.

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 firm 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 firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.31 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Nutrien Ltd. will post 4.95 earnings per share for the current year.

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 16th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, March 31st were issued a dividend of $0.55 per share. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.9%. This is a boost from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.55. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 31st. Nutrien’s payout ratio is currently 47.21%.

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.