What Is Going On With Nutrien Stock?
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Nutrien (NTR) stock trades at 14.1 times earnings, compared with 22.9 for the median S&P 500 company, even as the fertilizer maker posts rising profit. The shares returned 26.8% over the past year to outpace the S&P 500’s 15.1%, and the discount is still there. The stock price appears to assume that the profit will not last. That assumption is wrong only if Nutrien’s potash and nitrogen sales keep growing and its profit holds up when fertilizer prices ease. So how real is the recovery in Nutrien’s profit?
How Much Has Nutrien’s Profit Recovered?
So far the recovery is real: Nutrien earned $2.38 billion in net income over the four quarters to June 2026, up from $1.36 billion a year earlier.
Nutrien’s free cash flow equals 6.2% of its market value, meaning the low multiple applies to earnings that are growing and backed by cash flow.
Nutrien’s Profit Has Fallen Hard From A Peak Before
Nutrien has experienced a boom before, and its profit did not hold. The company earned $6.89 billion over the four quarters to June 2022. Sales then fell for three straight years, including 19.8% in the twelve months to June 2024, when net income dropped to $0.79 billion.
The latest year looks very different from that longer run. Revenue grew 8.6% in the twelve months to June 2026, following a 3.3% drop in the twelve months before.
Management said the second-quarter Potash result reflected higher global benchmark prices as well as the company’s own execution. So part of the recovery comes from prices Nutrien does not set, and today’s profit is still about a third of its 2022 peak. Nutrien has yet to show that its profit can stay up when fertilizer prices ease.
What Is Nutrien Doing To Steady Its Profit?
Management is selling unneeded assets and putting its weight behind potash. Nutrien is reviewing options for its Phosphate business, where management said sulfur costs had put unsustainable pressure on producer margins, and the company has received numerous nonbinding bids. Asset sales have raised about $1 billion in gross proceeds since the fourth quarter of 2024. In Potash, management cited strong first-half sales when it raised the bottom end of its 2026 sales volume guidance.
The low earnings multiple does not reflect the debt. Nutrien’s total debt equals 38.1% of its market value, compared with 19.4% for the S&P 500. If profit fell back toward its level in the twelve months to June 2024, today’s stock price would buy a much smaller stream of earnings, with that debt still owed.
What You Would Be Betting On With Nutrien
A buyer at this price is betting mainly that the market has underpriced Nutrien’s recovered profit, not on the asset sales and the phosphate review. Potash sales growth holds so far, but nitrogen sales volumes fell from a year earlier in the second quarter. The open side of that bet is whether Nutrien’s profit stays up when fertilizer prices ease.
The results to watch are Nutrien’s 2026 potash sales volumes, measured against its guidance of 14.2 million to 14.8 million tonnes, and the phosphate decision management expects in 2026. Management plans to outline its next steps at an Investor Day in Toronto on November 30.
How To Act On NTR?
Not necessarily on Nutrien alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. Here is one company from Nutrien’s own industry that has beaten it. Over the five years to October 2026, CF Industries stock rose 125%, while Nutrien stock rose 17.9%.
Finding companies like these takes comparison across industries and sectors, and that is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does. It holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and, since its inception in September 2020, has returned more than 105%, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap and Russell 2000. See how we find the leaders.
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