Merit Financial Group LLC Purchases Shares of 7,091 FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC)

Merit Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in FMC Co. (NYSE:FMC) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 7,091 shares of the basic materials company’s stock, valued at approximately $345,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Legacy Wealth Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in FMC by 37.9% during the 4th quarter. Legacy Wealth Asset Management LLC now owns 12,546 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $610,000 after purchasing an additional 3,446 shares during the last quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC boosted its position in shares of FMC by 6.2% during the fourth quarter. Park Avenue Securities LLC now owns 5,024 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $244,000 after buying an additional 293 shares during the last quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. grew its holdings in FMC by 20.9% during the fourth quarter. Reinhart Partners LLC. now owns 227,328 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $11,050,000 after buying an additional 39,230 shares in the last quarter. Brookstone Capital Management raised its position in FMC by 9.4% in the 4th quarter. Brookstone Capital Management now owns 164,887 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $8,015,000 after buying an additional 14,197 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Czech National Bank lifted its stake in FMC by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 27,072 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,316,000 after acquiring an additional 1,645 shares in the last quarter. 91.86% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently weighed in on FMC. Mizuho dropped their price target on shares of FMC from $70.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. KeyCorp dropped their target price on shares of FMC from $79.00 to $69.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 2nd. UBS Group cut their target price on FMC from $75.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Bank of America raised FMC from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $63.00 to $61.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Citigroup cut their price objective on FMC from $70.00 to $55.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, FMC currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $63.25.

Insider Activity at FMC

In related news, VP Jacqueline Scanlan sold 4,529 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.67, for a total transaction of $270,245.43. Following the sale, the vice president now owns 28,649 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,709,485.83. This represents a 13.65 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.85% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

FMC Trading Down 0.1 %

Shares of FMC stock opened at $55.59 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.65, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a current ratio of 1.48. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 4.78, a P/E/G ratio of 1.15 and a beta of 0.83. FMC Co. has a 52-week low of $47.71 and a 52-week high of $68.72. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $53.75 and its 200 day simple moving average is $58.94.

FMC (NYSE:FMC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The basic materials company reported $0.69 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.49 by $0.20. FMC had a net margin of 34.93% and a return on equity of 7.68%. The company had revenue of $1.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.04 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.44 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that FMC Co. will post 3.34 EPS for the current year.

FMC Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, January 16th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 31st were given a $0.58 dividend. This represents a $2.32 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.17%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, December 31st. FMC’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 19.97%.

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.