Short Interest in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) Declines By 45.6%

Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) saw a significant decline in short interest in July. As of July 15th, there was short interest totaling 5,567,872 shares, a decline of 45.6% from the June 30th total of 10,241,667 shares. Currently, 1.2% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 2,472,867 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.3 days.

Institutional Trading of Nutrien

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings 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 worth $1,386,546,000 after buying an additional 479,834 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in Nutrien by 440.2% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 16,338,606 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,008,713,000 after purchasing an additional 13,313,817 shares during the period. First Eagle Investment Management LLC increased its stake in Nutrien by 0.5% in the 4th 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 period. Deutsche Bank AG lifted 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 valued at $604,745,000 after purchasing an additional 189,683 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc lifted its position in Nutrien by 21.2% in the fourth quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 8,928,534 shares of the company’s stock valued at $551,821,000 after purchasing an additional 1,559,673 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 63.10% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on NTR shares. Raymond James Financial raised Nutrien from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $74.00 to $90.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 5th. Bank of America upgraded Nutrien from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $82.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Royal Bank Of Canada increased their price target on shares of Nutrien from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 7th. National Bank Financial set a $76.00 price objective on shares of Nutrien and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 13th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $93.00 to $81.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. Sixteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Nutrien currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $81.84.

Nutrien Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:NTR traded up $1.15 on Wednesday, hitting $70.61. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,212,330 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,212,266. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $66.41 and a 200 day simple moving average of $70.29. Nutrien has a 1 year low of $53.03 and a 1 year high of $85.36. The company has a market capitalization of $33.78 billion, a PE ratio of 14.38, a PEG ratio of 0.66 and a beta of 0.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a current ratio of 1.24 and a quick ratio of 0.59.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 6th. The company reported $0.51 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $6.05 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.30 billion. Nutrien had a return on equity of 8.84% and a net margin of 8.58%.Nutrien’s revenue was up 18.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.11 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Nutrien will post 5.08 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Nutrien Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, June 30th were paid a $0.55 dividend. This represents a $2.20 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, June 30th. Nutrien’s payout ratio is currently 44.81%.

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.