Dimensional Fund Advisors LP Raises Stock Holdings in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR)

Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) by 3.0% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 3,717,009 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 108,871 shares during the quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP owned approximately 0.75% of Nutrien worth $219,488,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in NTR. Bank of America Corp DE grew its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 49.8% during the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 19,638,296 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,450,288,000 after buying an additional 6,525,006 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Nutrien in the 4th quarter valued at $409,603,000. Capital International Investors purchased a new position in shares of Nutrien during the 1st quarter worth $521,017,000. Parnassus Investments LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 83.0% during the second quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 9,925,601 shares of the company’s stock worth $586,107,000 after purchasing an additional 4,502,952 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board boosted its stake in Nutrien by 144.8% in the 2nd quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 6,204,370 shares of the company’s stock worth $366,706,000 after buying an additional 3,669,500 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 62.77% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Nutrien from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price target for the stock from $70.00 to $58.00 in a research note on Monday, November 6th. Berenberg Bank raised their price objective on Nutrien from $49.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 7th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “equal weight” rating and set a $70.00 target price on shares of Nutrien in a report on Tuesday, July 25th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Nutrien from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $62.00 to $82.00 in a report on Monday, July 24th. Finally, Scotiabank decreased their price objective on shares of Nutrien from $90.00 to $75.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, November 6th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $77.90.

Nutrien Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE NTR opened at $57.20 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 1.25 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $59.15 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $60.86. Nutrien Ltd. has a 52-week low of $52.23 and a 52-week high of $85.16. The stock has a market capitalization of $28.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.21, a P/E/G ratio of 1.35 and a beta of 0.94.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 1st. The company reported $0.35 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.71 by ($0.36). The company had revenue of $5.63 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $5.69 billion. Nutrien had a return on equity of 11.93% and a net margin of 7.11%. Nutrien’s quarterly revenue was down 31.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.51 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Nutrien Ltd. will post 5.39 earnings per share for the current year.

Nutrien Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 12th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 29th will be paid a dividend of $0.53 per share. This represents a $2.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 28th. Nutrien’s payout ratio is 48.96%.

Nutrien Profile

Nutrien Ltd. provides crop inputs and services. The company operates through Retail, Potash, Nitrogen, and Phosphate segments. The Retail segment distributes crop nutrients, crop protection products, seeds, and merchandise products. The Potash segment provides granular and standard potash products. The Nitrogen segment offers ammonia, urea, urea ammonium nitrate, industrial grade ammonium nitrate, and ammonium sulfate.