Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky Boosts Holdings in FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC)

Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky lifted its stake in shares of FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) by 36.9% during the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 35,522 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 9,574 shares during the period. Teachers Retirement System of The State of Kentucky’s holdings in FMC were worth $2,264,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of FMC. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its holdings in shares of FMC by 15.3% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,547,766 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $791,137,000 after acquiring an additional 1,666,096 shares during the period. Tweedy Browne Co LLC grew its stake in FMC by 105.1% in the fourth quarter. Tweedy Browne Co LLC now owns 2,961,857 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $186,745,000 after purchasing an additional 1,518,053 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in FMC in the fourth quarter worth $83,227,000. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in FMC by 35.1% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,061,828 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $322,439,000 after buying an additional 1,316,133 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of FMC by 5.3% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,290,219 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $973,987,000 after buying an additional 768,432 shares in the last quarter. 91.86% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on shares of FMC from $53.00 to $50.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, May 13th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of FMC from $65.00 to $81.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, May 10th. KeyCorp cut their price target on FMC from $81.00 to $79.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday. Redburn Atlantic upgraded FMC from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 19th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on FMC from $68.00 to $62.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, July 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have assigned a hold rating, five have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, FMC has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $69.82.

FMC Stock Performance

Shares of FMC traded down $2.15 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $62.19. 2,401,892 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,853,288. The stock has a market cap of $7.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.94, a P/E/G ratio of 1.65 and a beta of 0.84. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $57.75 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $58.78. FMC Co. has a 1 year low of $49.49 and a 1 year high of $94.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 1.02 and a current ratio of 1.48.

FMC (NYSE:FMC) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The basic materials company reported $0.63 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.55 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $1.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. FMC had a net margin of 33.97% and a return on equity of 7.52%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 2.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.50 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that FMC Co. will post 3.17 earnings per share for the current year.

FMC Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 30th will be issued a $0.58 dividend. This represents a $2.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 30th. FMC’s dividend payout ratio is 25.89%.

FMC 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.