ICL Group (NYSE:ICL) Shares Gap Up – Time to Buy?

ICL Group Ltd. (NYSE:ICL) shares gapped up prior to trading on Wednesday . The stock had previously closed at $5.18, but opened at $5.35. ICL Group shares last traded at $5.3550, with a volume of 866,937 shares trading hands.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently commented on ICL. Barclays reduced their target price on ICL Group from $7.00 to $6.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, November 13th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c-)” rating on shares of ICL Group in a report on Monday, December 15th. Finally, Wall Street Zen raised shares of ICL Group from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Hold rating, According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $6.23.

ICL Group Stock Performance

The company has a current ratio of 1.43, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.30. The company’s 50-day moving average is $5.68 and its two-hundred day moving average is $6.20. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.47 and a beta of 0.98.

ICL Group (NYSE:ICL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 12th. The basic materials company reported $0.10 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.09 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.85 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.95 billion. ICL Group had a net margin of 5.23% and a return on equity of 7.24%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that ICL Group Ltd. will post 0.37 EPS for the current fiscal year.

ICL Group Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, December 17th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, December 2nd were paid a $0.048 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, December 2nd. This represents a $0.19 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.6%. ICL Group’s dividend payout ratio is presently 48.28%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On ICL Group

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ICL. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. acquired a new stake in shares of ICL Group in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $20,022,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake in ICL Group by 34.4% during the 2nd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 10,008,447 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $68,693,000 after purchasing an additional 2,563,805 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in shares of ICL Group by 120.2% during the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 4,153,799 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $23,635,000 after purchasing an additional 2,267,245 shares during the period. CWA Asset Management Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of ICL Group in the 2nd quarter worth $10,820,000. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of ICL Group in the second quarter valued at $7,798,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 13.38% of the company’s stock.

ICL Group Company Profile

ICL Group is a global specialty minerals and chemicals company headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel. Established in its current form through the consolidation of Israeli government–owned chemical operations, ICL has evolved into a publicly traded entity on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: ICL). The company’s origins date back to state-driven mineral extraction in the Negev and the Dead Sea region, and over the decades it has grown through strategic acquisitions, technological innovation and a gradual privatization process completed in the early 2010s.

ICL’s core operations are organized into three principal business areas.