UBS Group Issues Pessimistic Forecast for FMC (NYSE:FMC) Stock Price

FMC (NYSE:FMC) had its price target decreased by UBS Group from $75.00 to $66.00 in a research report report published on Friday,Benzinga reports. UBS Group currently has a buy rating on the basic materials company’s stock.

Several other brokerages have also recently issued reports on FMC. Mizuho raised their target price on shares of FMC from $64.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Citigroup decreased their price objective on FMC from $70.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on FMC from $78.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $65.69.

FMC Stock Up 4.8 %

FMC stock opened at $50.15 on Friday. FMC has a fifty-two week low of $47.73 and a fifty-two week high of $68.72. The company has a market cap of $6.26 billion, a PE ratio of 4.32, a PEG ratio of 1.48 and a beta of 0.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a current ratio of 1.48. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $58.69 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $59.84.

FMC (NYSE:FMC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $0.69 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.49 by $0.20. FMC had a net margin of 34.93% and a return on equity of 7.68%. The company had revenue of $1.07 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.04 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.44 EPS. FMC’s quarterly revenue was up 8.5% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts anticipate that FMC will post 3.35 EPS for the current year.

FMC Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 16th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a dividend of $0.58 per share. This represents a $2.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.63%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 31st. FMC’s payout ratio is 19.97%.

Insider Activity at FMC

In other FMC news, VP Jacqueline Scanlan sold 4,529 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.67, for a total transaction of $270,245.43. Following the completion of the transaction, the vice president now directly owns 28,649 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,709,485.83. This represents a 13.65 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.85% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of FMC

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of FMC. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in FMC by 27.3% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,271,760 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $417,151,000 after buying an additional 1,343,615 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of FMC by 317.7% in the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,099,389 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $63,160,000 after acquiring an additional 836,179 shares in the last quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of FMC in the second quarter worth approximately $33,191,000. Ilex Capital Partners UK LLP increased its position in shares of FMC by 2,129.4% during the third quarter. Ilex Capital Partners UK LLP now owns 440,353 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $29,037,000 after purchasing an additional 420,601 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Van ECK Associates Corp increased its position in shares of FMC by 116.8% during the second quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 555,095 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $31,946,000 after purchasing an additional 299,097 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.86% of the company’s stock.

FMC Company Profile

FMC Corporation, an agricultural sciences company, provides crop protection, plant health, and professional pest and turf management products. It develops, markets, and sells crop protection chemicals that includes insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides; and biologicals, crop nutrition, and seed treatment products, which are used in agriculture to enhance crop yield and quality by controlling a range of insects, weeds, and diseases, as well as in non-agricultural markets for pest control.