Here's one way for a company to stem a temporary price slide: Shares of Minnesota-based fertilizer manufacturer Mosaic (NYSE: MOS), whose price about quadrupled in a year, retreated nearly 10% in the week before the company released quarterly results.
But no problem. All management needed to do to get the situation righted was to report a nearly sixfold year-over-year jump in earnings for the quarter ended in November. The share price slippage reversed itself straight away.
Indeed, Mosaic, which, like a handful of other companies, is riding the wave of a lights-out agricultural market, checked in with November quarter earnings of $394 million, or $0.89 a share, compared to $65.9 million, or $0.15 a share a year ago. The company's quarterly revenues climbed 45% to $2.2 billion.
Mosaic produces a range of fertilizers and animal feed in the U.S. and internationally. The key components in the company's products are the phosphates it mines in Florida and Louisiana, the potash it mines and processes in Canada and the U.S., and nitrogen. Nearly 30% of Mosaic's net sales occur through its offshore segment, which is active in a number of countries, including Brazil.
Mosaic is joined by Canadian agricultural suppliers Agrium (NYSE: AGU) and Potash Corp. (NYSE: POT), and by Monsanto (NYSE: MON) and Illinois-based CF Industries (NYSE: CF) in rewarding shareholders nicely for having signed on. All these companies were at least doubles during 2007, and CF, like Mosaic, was a solid 3-bagger.
As with energy and numerous other natural resources, our increasingly industrialized world has become a veritable bottomless pit for agricultural products. Among the results were a 20% year-over-year increase in potash price realizations for Mosaic and a more than 70% jump in diammonium phosphate prices.
So, Fools, with such large U.S. companies as Deere (NYSE: DE) and DuPont (NYSE: DD) also benefiting from agricultural strength in the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, I'm recommending that we all keep our eyes peeled on this bottle rocket of a group. Mosaic has assumed a position near the top of my watch list.
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