Short Interest in FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) Grows By 9.4%

FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) saw a significant growth in short interest in the month of December. As of December 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,310,000 shares, a growth of 9.4% from the November 30th total of 5,770,000 shares. Currently, 5.1% of the company’s stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 1,260,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 5.0 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have commented on FMC shares. Mizuho raised their price objective on FMC from $64.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. UBS Group lowered their target price on FMC from $75.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Citigroup lowered their target price on FMC from $70.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on FMC from $78.00 to $81.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating, four have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, FMC has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $65.69.

Insider Buying and Selling at FMC

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On FMC

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of FMC by 27.3% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 6,271,760 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $417,151,000 after buying an additional 1,343,615 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of FMC by 1.8% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,136,344 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $74,931,000 after buying an additional 20,350 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of FMC by 317.7% during 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 buying an additional 836,179 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of FMC by 9.7% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 721,879 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $41,543,000 after buying an additional 64,055 shares during the last quarter. Finally, New South Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of FMC by 1.5% during the third quarter. New South Capital Management Inc. now owns 665,979 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $43,915,000 after buying an additional 9,834 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.86% of the company’s stock.

FMC Stock Up 0.3 %

NYSE:FMC opened at $48.61 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $6.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 4.18, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.48 and a beta of 0.80. FMC has a one year low of $47.71 and a one year high of $68.72. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $56.57 and a 200 day simple moving average of $59.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a current ratio of 1.48.

FMC (NYSE:FMC) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $0.69 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.49 by $0.20. FMC had a return on equity of 7.68% and a net margin of 34.93%. The company had revenue of $1.07 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.04 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.44 earnings per share. FMC’s quarterly revenue was up 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that FMC will post 3.35 EPS for the current fiscal year.

FMC Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, January 16th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a $0.58 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, December 31st. This represents a $2.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.77%. FMC’s payout ratio is currently 19.97%.

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.