530,000 Shares in Nutrien Ltd. $NTR Bought by NFJ Investment Group LLC

NFJ Investment Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) in the second quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 530,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,674,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of NTR. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 440.2% in the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 16,338,606 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,008,713,000 after purchasing an additional 13,313,817 shares in the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG bought a new position in shares of Nutrien during the second quarter worth about $588,720,000. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Nutrien in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $412,635,000. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in Nutrien in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $220,942,000. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc lifted its stake in Nutrien by 21.2% in the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 8,928,534 shares of the company’s stock valued at $551,821,000 after acquiring an additional 1,559,673 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 63.10% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

NTR has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. BNP Paribas Exane raised Nutrien from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $80.00 price target for the company in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $78.00 to $80.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, May 11th. Oppenheimer cut their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $82.00 to $80.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 23rd. Bank of America upgraded shares of Nutrien from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $82.00 target price for the company in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Nutrien in a report on Monday, August 10th. Seventeen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $81.58.

Nutrien Price Performance

Shares of NYSE NTR opened at $73.19 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $66.26 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $70.38. The company has a market cap of $35.01 billion, a PE ratio of 14.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 0.61. Nutrien Ltd. has a twelve month low of $53.03 and a twelve month high of $85.36.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 5th. The company reported $2.61 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.70 by ($0.09). Nutrien had a net margin of 8.44% and a return on equity of 8.88%. The business had revenue of $10.81 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.44 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.65 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that Nutrien Ltd. will post 5.01 EPS for the current year.

Nutrien Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, October 16th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 29th will be issued a dividend of $0.55 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 29th. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.0%. Nutrien’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 44.53%.

Nutrien Profile

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.