Monsanto Co. (NYSE: MON) is scheduled to release its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report before the markets open on Wednesday. The consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters are calling for a net loss of $0.02 per share on $2.62 billion in revenue. The same period from last year had $2.2 billion in revenue.
This large cap materials and agriculture leader is being pursued by Bayer, while it has been considering a purchase of BASF agricultural assets. Monsanto operates in two segments. The Seeds and Genomics segment produces raw crop seeds, including corn, soybean, cotton and canola seeds under the DeKalb, Channel, Asgrow and Deltapine brands, and vegetable seeds, such as tomato, pepper, melon, cucumber, squash, beans, broccoli, onions, lettuce and others under the Seminis and De Ruiter brands.
The segment also develops biotechnology traits that assist farmers in controlling insects and weeds in corn, soybean, cotton and canola crops under the SmartStax, YieldGard, YieldGard VT Triple, VT Triple PRO and VT Double PRO brands, and Intacta RR2 PRO and Bollgard and Bollgard II, as well as Roundup Ready and Roundup Ready 2 Yield and Genuity brands.
The Agricultural Productivity segment manufactures and sells herbicides for agricultural, industrial, ornamental, turf and residential lawn and garden applications for weed control, as well as for control of pre-emergent annual grass and small seeded broadleaf weeds in corn and other crops under the Roundup and Harness brands.
Ahead of the earnings report, a few analysts weighed in on Monsanto:
- Goldman Sachs has a Neutral rating with a $104 price target.
- Sanford Bernstein has a Market Perform rating with a $105 price target.
- JPMorgan has an Overweight rating with a $128 price target.
- Piper Jaffray has a Buy rating with a $128 price target.
- BMO Capital Markets has a Buy rating with a $128 price target.
- Deutsche Bank has a Buy rating with a $128 price target.
- Jefferies reiterated a Buy rating.
- Citigroup has a Neutral rating.
- Argus reiterated a Buy rating with a $128 price target.
- Atlance Securities has a Neutral rating with a $105 price target.
So far in 2016, Monsanto has performed more or less in line with the broad markets, with the stock up about 6%. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock is up over 20%.
Shares of Monsanto were trading at $102.42 on Tuesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $118.44 and a 52-week trading range of $83.73 to $114.26.
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