FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) Short Interest Down 9.2% in September

FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) was the recipient of a large drop in short interest in the month of September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,330,000 shares, a drop of 9.2% from the August 31st total of 6,970,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,370,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 4.6 days. Approximately 5.1% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On FMC

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its position in shares of FMC by 15.3% during the fourth quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,547,766 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $791,137,000 after buying an additional 1,666,096 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in shares of FMC by 35.1% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 5,061,828 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $322,439,000 after acquiring an additional 1,316,133 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of FMC by 317.7% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,099,389 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $63,160,000 after acquiring an additional 836,179 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of FMC by 5.3% in 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 purchasing an additional 768,432 shares during the period. Finally, Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. bought a new stake in shares of FMC during the first quarter valued at approximately $37,686,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.86% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently commented on FMC shares. KeyCorp reduced their target price on FMC from $81.00 to $79.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on shares of FMC from $68.00 to $62.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, July 16th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of FMC from $62.00 to $65.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Redburn Atlantic raised shares of FMC from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 19th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on shares of FMC from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, August 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, FMC presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $68.47.

FMC Trading Up 0.2 %

FMC stock traded up $0.11 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $66.08. The company had a trading volume of 1,192,114 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,791,143. The stock has a market cap of $8.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.38, a PEG ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 0.85. FMC has a 52 week low of $49.49 and a 52 week high of $68.72. The company has a current ratio of 1.48, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $62.37 and its 200 day moving average price is $60.71.

FMC (NYSE:FMC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The basic materials company reported $0.63 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.55 by $0.08. The company 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 firm’s revenue was up 2.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.50 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that FMC will post 3.41 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

FMC Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, October 17th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 30th will be given a dividend of $0.58 per share. This represents a $2.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.51%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, September 30th. FMC’s payout ratio is 25.89%.

About FMC

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.