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

FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest during 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. Approximately 5.1% of the company’s stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 1,370,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.6 days.

Institutional Trading of FMC

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Legacy Wealth Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of FMC by 4.6% during the 1st 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 in the last quarter. Taylor Frigon Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 183 shares in the last quarter. Wahed Invest LLC lifted its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 184 shares in the last quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV boosted its position in shares of FMC by 27.7% in the first quarter. Massmutual Trust Co. FSB ADV now owns 866 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $55,000 after purchasing an additional 188 shares during the period. Finally, Dark Forest Capital Management LP increased its stake in shares of FMC by 3.1% in the second quarter. Dark Forest Capital Management LP now owns 6,465 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $372,000 after purchasing an additional 192 shares in the last quarter. 91.86% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have issued reports on FMC. Barclays lifted their price objective on FMC from $62.00 to $65.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of FMC from $50.00 to $59.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, August 12th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of FMC from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Redburn Atlantic raised shares of FMC from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, July 19th. Finally, KeyCorp cut their price target on shares of FMC from $81.00 to $79.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, FMC currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $68.47.

FMC Stock Performance

Shares of FMC stock traded up $0.11 on Friday, reaching $66.08. The stock had a trading volume of 1,192,114 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,791,143. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.66, a quick ratio of 1.07 and a current ratio of 1.48. FMC has a 1 year low of $49.49 and a 1 year high of $68.72. The stock has a market cap of $8.25 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.57 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $62.37 and a 200 day simple moving average of $60.71.

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

FMC Dividend Announcement

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