Assetmark Inc. Purchases 8,869 Shares of Nutrien Ltd. $NTR

Assetmark Inc. boosted its position in Nutrien Ltd. (NYSE:NTR) by 63.9% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 22,743 shares of the company’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,869 shares during the period. Assetmark Inc.’s holdings in Nutrien were worth $1,716,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in NTR. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Nutrien by 2.2% during the fourth 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 period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in 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. First Eagle Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. First Eagle Investment Management LLC now owns 13,307,283 shares of the company’s stock valued at $821,326,000 after purchasing an additional 70,068 shares during the period. Deutsche Bank AG raised its holdings in shares of Nutrien by 2.0% during the fourth quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 9,798,196 shares of the company’s stock valued at $604,745,000 after purchasing an additional 189,683 shares during the period. Finally, TD Asset Management Inc raised its stake in Nutrien by 21.2% during the 4th quarter. TD Asset Management Inc now owns 8,928,534 shares of the company’s stock worth $551,821,000 after buying an additional 1,559,673 shares during the period. 63.10% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently issued reports on NTR. UBS Group reduced their price target on shares of Nutrien from $67.00 to $65.00 and set a “sell” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Scotiabank upgraded Nutrien from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector outperform” rating and set a $80.00 price target on the stock in a report on Tuesday, June 30th. National Bank Financial set a $76.00 target price on shares of Nutrien and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, July 13th. Raymond James Financial upgraded shares of Nutrien from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $74.00 to $90.00 in a research note on Tuesday, May 5th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Nutrien from $78.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, May 11th. Fourteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Nutrien presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $81.89.

Nutrien Price Performance

Shares of Nutrien stock opened at $68.18 on Friday. Nutrien Ltd. has a 12-month low of $53.03 and a 12-month high of $85.36. The firm has a market cap of $32.61 billion, a PE ratio of 13.89, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.67 and a beta of 0.62. The company has a quick ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.24 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $66.52 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $70.04.

Nutrien (NYSE:NTR) last posted its 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 return on equity of 8.84% and a net margin of 8.58%.The firm had revenue of $6.05 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.30 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.11 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 18.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts expect that Nutrien Ltd. will post 5.11 EPS for the current year.

Nutrien Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, July 17th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, June 30th were given a dividend of $0.55 per share. This represents a $2.20 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, June 30th. Nutrien’s payout ratio is presently 44.81%.

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.