FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) Short Interest Down 6.5% in August

FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) saw a significant drop in short interest in the month of August. As of August 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,920,000 shares, a drop of 6.5% from the July 31st total of 7,400,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 1,850,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.7 days. Currently, 5.6% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On FMC

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Legacy Wealth Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in FMC by 4.6% in the first quarter. Legacy Wealth Asset Management LLC now owns 4,007 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $255,000 after buying an additional 175 shares during the period. Taylor Frigon Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of FMC by 1.5% during the first quarter. Taylor Frigon Capital Management LLC now owns 12,581 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $801,000 after acquiring an additional 183 shares in the last quarter. Wahed Invest LLC increased its holdings in shares of FMC by 9.5% during the fourth quarter. Wahed Invest LLC now owns 2,131 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $134,000 after acquiring an additional 184 shares in the last quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV increased its holdings in shares of FMC by 27.7% during the first quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV now owns 866 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $55,000 after acquiring an additional 188 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dark Forest Capital Management LP increased its holdings in shares of FMC by 3.1% during the second quarter. Dark Forest Capital Management LP now owns 6,465 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $372,000 after acquiring an additional 192 shares in the last quarter. 91.86% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have issued reports on FMC. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on FMC from $50.00 to $59.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Mizuho lifted their target price on FMC from $55.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 7th. Barclays lifted their target price on FMC from $62.00 to $65.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Redburn Atlantic raised FMC from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, July 19th. Finally, StockNews.com raised FMC from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 8th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $68.63.

FMC Price Performance

FMC stock opened at $64.58 on Monday. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $59.92 and its 200 day moving average is $59.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a current ratio of 1.48 and a quick ratio of 1.07. The firm has a market cap of $8.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.21, a P/E/G ratio of 1.60 and a beta of 0.84. FMC has a one year low of $49.49 and a one year high of $88.83.

FMC (NYSE:FMC) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 31st. The basic materials company reported $0.63 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.55 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.03 billion. FMC had a return on equity of 7.52% and a net margin of 33.97%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 2.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.50 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that FMC will post 3.41 EPS for the current year.

FMC Dividend Announcement

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 paid a $0.58 dividend. This represents a $2.32 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.59%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, September 30th. FMC’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 25.89%.

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.