Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) Sees Large Drop in Short Interest

Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) saw a significant drop in short interest in April. As of April 30th, there was short interest totaling 2,447,755 shares, a drop of 34.2% from the April 15th total of 3,717,784 shares. Currently, 0.5% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,560,981 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 1.0 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Nutrien by 2.2% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 22,463,277 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,386,546,000 after purchasing an additional 479,834 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in shares of Nutrien by 440.2% during 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 last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in shares of Nutrien by 19.1% during the 3rd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 14,221,381 shares of the company’s stock worth $834,962,000 after purchasing an additional 2,276,651 shares during the last quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Nutrien by 0.5% during 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 last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG increased its stake in shares of Nutrien by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 9,798,196 shares of the company’s stock worth $604,745,000 after purchasing an additional 189,683 shares during the last quarter. 63.10% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on NTR shares. Barclays raised their price target on Nutrien from $70.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 3rd. BNP Paribas Exane lowered shares of Nutrien from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, February 23rd. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $80.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, May 12th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $77.00 to $93.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 8th. Finally, Raymond James Financial upgraded shares of Nutrien from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $74.00 to $90.00 in a report on Tuesday, May 5th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Nutrien currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $82.75.

Nutrien Stock Up 0.1%

NTR stock traded up $0.05 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $71.67. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 822,648 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,438,230. 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 has a twelve month low of $53.03 and a twelve month high of $85.36. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $74.50 and its 200 day moving average price is $67.64. The stock has a market capitalization of $34.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 14.60 and a beta of 0.64.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 6th. The company reported $0.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.03. Nutrien had a net margin of 8.58% and a return on equity of 8.84%. The firm had revenue of $6.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.11 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 18.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Nutrien will post 5.42 EPS for the current year.

Nutrien Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 17th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, June 30th will be paid a dividend of $0.55 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, June 30th. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.1%. Nutrien’s payout ratio is currently 44.81%.

About Nutrien

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.