Portland Investment Counsel Inc. Acquires 1,800 Shares of Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR)

Portland Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its holdings in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 308,800 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 1,800 shares during the quarter. Nutrien makes up about 5.3% of Portland Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 7th largest holding. Portland Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Nutrien were worth $14,839,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of NTR. Goodman Financial Corp grew its stake in shares of Nutrien by 4.6% during the 3rd quarter. Goodman Financial Corp now owns 253,860 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,201,000 after acquiring an additional 11,058 shares in the last quarter. CORDA Investment Management LLC. raised its holdings in Nutrien by 7.0% in the 3rd quarter. CORDA Investment Management LLC. now owns 494,745 shares of the company’s stock valued at $23,777,000 after acquiring an additional 32,541 shares during the period. Manning & Napier Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Nutrien during the second quarter worth approximately $2,639,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 10.0% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,742,351 shares of the company’s stock worth $83,812,000 after acquiring an additional 157,932 shares during the period. Finally, Cardinal Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Nutrien by 4.3% in the third quarter. Cardinal Capital Management Inc. now owns 564,078 shares of the company’s stock valued at $27,139,000 after purchasing an additional 23,117 shares during the last quarter. 63.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on NTR. TD Securities decreased their price objective on Nutrien from $63.00 to $61.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, November 12th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut shares of Nutrien from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $69.00 to $53.00 in a report on Tuesday, September 10th. Mizuho dropped their price objective on Nutrien from $55.00 to $52.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, August 8th. Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $60.00 target price on shares of Nutrien in a report on Friday, September 20th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets cut their price target on shares of Nutrien from $80.00 to $75.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, August 9th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Nutrien presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $60.33.

Nutrien Stock Performance

Shares of NTR opened at $46.69 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $47.93 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $49.82. Nutrien Ltd. has a 12 month low of $44.65 and a 12 month 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. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 0.82.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $0.39 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.43 by ($0.04). The business had revenue of $5.35 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.26 billion. Nutrien had a return on equity of 6.99% and a net margin of 2.79%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.35 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that Nutrien Ltd. will post 3.56 EPS for the current year.

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be given a $0.939 dividend. This is a positive change from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.54. This represents a $3.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 8.04%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 31st. Nutrien’s dividend 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.