Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) Earns Buy Rating from Analysts at Jefferies Financial Group

Jefferies Financial Group assumed coverage on shares of Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) in a report published on Tuesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage issued a buy rating and a $62.00 price objective on the stock.

NTR has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on Nutrien from $75.00 to $70.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. Piper Sandler downgraded Nutrien from a neutral rating to an underweight rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $68.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 29th. BNP Paribas downgraded Nutrien from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, November 30th. HSBC decreased their target price on Nutrien from $63.00 to $57.00 and set a hold rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 8th. Finally, Raymond James downgraded Nutrien from an outperform rating to a market perform rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $80.00 to $65.00 in a research report on Friday, January 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $69.43.

Nutrien Stock Performance

NYSE NTR opened at $54.31 on Tuesday. The firm has a market cap of $26.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a quick ratio of 0.65, a current ratio of 1.17 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $51.81 and a 200-day moving average price of $55.23. Nutrien has a twelve month low of $47.90 and a twelve month high of $75.29.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 21st. The company reported $0.37 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.72 by ($0.35). The business had revenue of $5.66 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.36 billion. Nutrien had a return on equity of 8.59% and a net margin of 4.33%. The business’s revenue was down 24.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.02 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Nutrien will post 3.95 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Nutrien Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, April 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 28th will be paid a $0.54 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 27th. This represents a $2.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.98%. This is a boost from Nutrien’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.53. Nutrien’s dividend payout ratio is 85.38%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Townsend & Associates Inc boosted its position in Nutrien by 27.8% during the 3rd quarter. Townsend & Associates Inc now owns 163,942 shares of the company’s stock valued at $10,125,000 after acquiring an additional 35,690 shares in the last quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc boosted its position in Nutrien by 2.5% during the 3rd quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 6,361,084 shares of the company’s stock valued at $394,047,000 after acquiring an additional 154,159 shares in the last quarter. Canoe Financial LP boosted its position in Nutrien by 64.6% during the 3rd quarter. Canoe Financial LP now owns 75,945 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,690,000 after acquiring an additional 29,819 shares in the last quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC boosted its position in Nutrien by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 9,262,659 shares of the company’s stock valued at $572,062,000 after acquiring an additional 48,230 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG boosted its position in Nutrien by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 14,708,135 shares of the company’s stock valued at $908,374,000 after acquiring an additional 214,299 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 63.10% of the company’s stock.

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.