Stock Update (NYSE:MON): India antitrust body suspects Monsanto abused dominant position

[Reuters] – India’s antitrust regulator said on Wednesday it suspected that a Monsanto joint venture had abused its dominant position as a supplier of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds in the country. Local farmers and some of their associations, including one affiliated to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party, have complained that Monsanto overprices its products using its position as the supplier of GM seeds used in more than 90 percent of the country’s cotton cultivation. U.S.-based Monsanto launched a GM cotton variety in India in 2002 despite opposition from critics who questioned its safety, transforming the country into the world ’s top producer and second-largest exporter of the fibre. Read more on this. Monsanto Company (MON) , valued at $39.30B, opened this morning at $88.67. A quick look at the market, the company’s stock traded between $88.36 and $89.49 with a trailing 52-week range being $81.22 to $126.00. MON shares are currently priced at 17.00x this year’s forecasted earnings, which makes them relatively inexpensive compared to the industry ’s 19.90x forward p/e ratio. The company pays shareholders $2.16 per share in dividend income per year, for a current yield of 2.48%. Consensus earnings for the current quarter by the 20 sell-side analysts covering the stock is an estimate of $2.84 per share, which would be $0.05 worse than the year-ago quarter and a $0.15 sequential decrease. The full-year EPS estimate is $5.12 which would be a $0.61 worse than last year’s full-year earnings. The quarterly earnings estimate is based on a consensus revenue forecast of the current quarter of $5.00 Billion. If realized, that would be a 3.85% decrease over the year-ago quarter. Recently, Bernstein Initiated MON at Underperform (Sep 11, 2015). Previously, Wells Fargo downgraded MON from Outperform to Market Perform. The average price target for MON shares by the analysts covering the stock is $106.79, which is 20.44% above where the stock opened this morning. See more in (NYSE:MON) Similar Articles: Stock Update: Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) – Monsanto to pay $80 million in SEC settlement over Roundup earnings Market Update: Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) – Farmers to Gain Access to Monsanto’s Roundup Ready 2 Xtend™ Soybeans in 2016 Stock Update: Monsanto Company (NYSE:MON) – Monsanto to cut additional 1,000 jobs, bringing total planned job cuts to 3,600