Last night I had a Reuben for dinner from a great, local deli. That required bread, pastrami, swiss cheese, and sauerkraut. At least some of those ingredients required fertilizer at some point in their growth and Potash Corp./Saskatchewan Inc. (TSX:POT)(NYSE:POT) might very well have been part of the process of bringing me my dinner.
For those of you that don’t know, Potash Corp. mines for three nutrients that are necessary for the creation of fertilizer. Primarily, it finds potash, which is any salt that is comprised of potassium. It is also the third-largest supplier of nitrogen and phosphates. Take all three of those ingredients, plus many others, mix them together, and you’ve got fertilizer.
Based on that knowledge, Potash Corp. should immediately ring a bell in your head as an attractive stock. Here are three more reasons why you should consider adding it to your portfolio.
1. Rising population
The peak of the world’s population is expected to happen in 2050, which is about 35 years from now. There are estimates of anywhere from 9-11 million people that will need to have food provided for them. Furthermore, as countries like China and India start to develop their middle class even more, those citizens are going to want to eat better food.
This means that farmers are going to need better fertilizer to better use the land they have available to them. If an acre normally yields 50 pounds of food, it will need to yield 75 pounds of food. This is going to result in an increased demand for Potash, which benefits the company.
2. It is valuable
Despite the fact that it had an amazing quarter, the stock has been in free-fall. There’s nothing I love more than a stock that is not behaving like its numbers suggest it should because this opens up the door for you to get an amazing entry point.
The company increased revenue by 23.4% year over year to end at $1.90 billion. Its net income increased 77% to $407 million. Despite this growth, investors are running.
Therefore, what you should do is put a big old “POT” on your whiteboard and wait for it to bottom. Or you could buy it now because of our third reason.
3. It has great dividends
Potash has a 4.75% yield, which means that you would get $1.91 per year per share. What’s even better is that the dividend has been raised six times since 2011. With cash flow increasing so much year over year, I wouldn’t be surprised if Potash continues to raise the dividend.
Therefore, an easy way to play this would be to start acquiring shares now and then automatically reinvest the dividends into more shares. This will help you average down your price per share, but also increase your overall position.
