South Dakota Investment Council Acquires 6,300 Shares of FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC)

South Dakota Investment Council increased its position in FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) by 171.3% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 9,977 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after buying an additional 6,300 shares during the quarter. South Dakota Investment Council’s holdings in FMC were worth $629,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. North Point Portfolio Managers Corp OH lifted its position in FMC by 67.3% in the 4th quarter. North Point Portfolio Managers Corp OH now owns 118,531 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $7,473,000 after buying an additional 47,697 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James & Associates increased its stake in FMC by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 115,182 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $7,262,000 after purchasing an additional 610 shares during the period. Manning & Napier Group LLC increased its stake in FMC by 58.9% in the 3rd quarter. Manning & Napier Group LLC now owns 2,249,633 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $150,658,000 after purchasing an additional 833,845 shares during the period. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in FMC by 37.9% in the 3rd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,764,469 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $118,166,000 after purchasing an additional 484,500 shares during the period. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB increased its stake in FMC by 15.4% in the 3rd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 14,195 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $950,000 after purchasing an additional 1,889 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.86% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on FMC. Roth Mkm began coverage on FMC in a research note on Thursday, January 4th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $74.00 price target on the stock. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price target on FMC from $63.00 to $61.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Bank of America cut FMC from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and decreased their price target for the stock from $60.00 to $57.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 16th. BNP Paribas cut FMC from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $56.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, February 7th. Finally, Mizuho decreased their price target on FMC from $59.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, February 6th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, FMC has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $71.75.

FMC Trading Down 1.0 %

FMC stock opened at $57.80 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.52, a quick ratio of 1.01 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $59.33 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $58.10. FMC Co. has a 12 month low of $49.49 and a 12 month high of $124.61. The company has a market capitalization of $7.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 0.87.

FMC (NYSE:FMC) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 6th. The basic materials company reported $1.07 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.08 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $1.15 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.25 billion. FMC had a return on equity of 12.98% and a net margin of 29.45%. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.37 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that FMC Co. will post 3.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

FMC Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, April 18th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 28th were issued a dividend of $0.58 per share. This represents a $2.32 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.01%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, March 27th. FMC’s payout ratio is currently 22.03%.

Insider Activity

In other FMC news, CFO Andrew D. Sandifer purchased 2,150 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 4th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $59.22 per share, with a total value of $127,323.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the chief financial officer now directly owns 50,088 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,966,211.36. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.85% of the company’s stock.

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.