Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) Given Consensus Recommendation of “Hold” by Brokerages

Shares of Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) have earned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the eighteen research firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, four have assigned a hold recommendation and eleven have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $58.95.

NTR has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $60.00 price objective on shares of Nutrien in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Wells Fargo & Company cut shares of Nutrien from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $62.00 to $50.00 in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. TD Securities decreased their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $63.00 to $61.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, November 12th. Raymond James raised shares of Nutrien from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $58.00 to $60.00 in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, UBS Group cut Nutrien from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $66.00 to $51.00 in a report on Thursday, October 10th.

Nutrien Stock Up 1.2 %

Shares of NTR stock opened at $45.28 on Friday. 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 has a 12 month low of $43.69 and a 12 month high of $60.87. The stock has a market cap of $22.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.39, a P/E/G ratio of 1.73 and a beta of 0.80. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $46.87 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $48.05.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The company reported $0.39 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates 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 the consensus estimate of $5.26 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.35 earnings per share. Nutrien’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts expect that Nutrien will post 3.5 earnings per share for the current year.

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 17th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be issued a $0.939 dividend. This is a boost from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.54. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 31st. This represents a $3.76 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.30%. Nutrien’s payout ratio is 144.97%.

Institutional Trading of Nutrien

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Central Pacific Bank Trust Division bought a new position in Nutrien in the 3rd quarter valued at $28,000. Andra AP fonden bought a new position in shares of Nutrien in the second quarter worth about $51,000. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. purchased a new position in Nutrien in the 2nd quarter worth about $52,000. Rothschild Investment LLC bought a new stake in Nutrien during the 2nd quarter valued at about $72,000. Finally, Larson Financial Group LLC boosted its position in Nutrien by 1,370.6% in the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 1,603 shares of the company’s stock valued at $77,000 after buying an additional 1,494 shares during the period. 63.10% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Nutrien

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.