Scheer Rowlett & Associates Investment Management Ltd. Cuts Stake in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR)

Scheer Rowlett & Associates Investment Management Ltd. reduced its stake in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) by 1.0% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 602,723 shares of the company’s stock after selling 5,852 shares during the period. Nutrien comprises approximately 2.0% of Scheer Rowlett & Associates Investment Management Ltd.’s holdings, making the stock its 21st largest position. Scheer Rowlett & Associates Investment Management Ltd.’s holdings in Nutrien were worth $28,959,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of NTR. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Nutrien by 3.1% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 18,781,287 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,020,012,000 after buying an additional 570,912 shares during the last quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Nutrien by 9.6% in the first quarter. Acadian Asset Management LLC now owns 27,400 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,488,000 after buying an additional 2,400 shares during the period. Covestor Ltd grew its holdings in Nutrien by 33.3% during the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 932 shares of the company’s stock valued at $50,000 after buying an additional 233 shares in the last quarter. Seven Eight Capital LP purchased a new position in Nutrien during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $275,000. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 25.7% in the 1st quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 724,267 shares of the company’s stock worth $39,403,000 after purchasing an additional 148,226 shares during the period. 63.10% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently commented on NTR shares. Scotiabank reduced their price target on Nutrien from $66.00 to $59.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 12th. TD Securities dropped their price target on shares of Nutrien from $63.00 to $61.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, November 12th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered shares of Nutrien from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $62.00 to $50.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Mizuho reduced their price target on shares of Nutrien from $55.00 to $52.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 8th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets dropped their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $80.00 to $75.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Nutrien presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $60.33.

Nutrien Price Performance

NTR stock traded down $0.15 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $45.41. The company had a trading volume of 187,259 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,966,832. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 0.82. The business has a 50 day moving average of $47.98 and a 200 day moving average of $50.28. Nutrien Ltd. has a fifty-two week low of $44.65 and a fifty-two week high of $60.87. The company has a current ratio of 1.27, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.43 by ($0.04). Nutrien had a return on equity of 6.99% and a net margin of 2.79%. The company had revenue of $5.35 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.26 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.35 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Nutrien Ltd. will post 3.59 earnings per share for the current year.

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be issued a dividend of $0.939 per share. This represents a $3.76 annualized dividend and a yield of 8.27%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st. This is an increase from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.54. Nutrien’s payout ratio is presently 144.97%.

Nutrien Profile

Nutrien Ltd. provides crop inputs and services. The company operates through four segments: Retail, Potash, Nitrogen, and Phosphate. The Retail segment distributes crop nutrients, crop protection products, seeds, and merchandise products. The Potash segment provides granular and standard potash products.