Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. Purchases 2,428 Shares of Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR)

Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. boosted its position in Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE:INGR - Free Report) by 17.0% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 16,669 shares of the company's stock after purchasing an additional 2,428 shares during the period. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc.'s holdings in Ingredion were worth $2,254,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Kingsview Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ingredion in the fourth quarter valued at about $244,000. Savant Capital LLC increased its stake in shares of Ingredion by 19.6% in the fourth quarter. Savant Capital LLC now owns 2,981 shares of the company's stock valued at $410,000 after buying an additional 489 shares during the period. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its stake in shares of Ingredion by 4.4% in the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 163,575 shares of the company's stock valued at $22,501,000 after buying an additional 6,845 shares during the period. Nations Financial Group Inc. IA ADV increased its stake in shares of Ingredion by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Nations Financial Group Inc. IA ADV now owns 19,355 shares of the company's stock valued at $2,662,000 after buying an additional 547 shares during the period. Finally, James Investment Research Inc. increased its stake in shares of Ingredion by 105.0% in the fourth quarter. James Investment Research Inc. now owns 6,569 shares of the company's stock valued at $904,000 after buying an additional 3,364 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 85.27% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on INGR shares. UBS Group set a $155.00 price target on Ingredion in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. Wall Street Zen raised Ingredion from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Sunday, June 8th. Finally, Oppenheimer decreased their price target on Ingredion from $167.00 to $155.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 22nd. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $152.20.

Ingredion Trading Down 0.3%

Shares of Ingredion stock traded down $0.38 on Wednesday, hitting $137.14. 167,767 shares of the company's stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 474,130. Ingredion Incorporated has a one year low of $111.54 and a one year high of $155.44. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44, a current ratio of 2.85 and a quick ratio of 1.86. The company has a fifty day moving average of $135.18 and a two-hundred day moving average of $134.63. The company has a market capitalization of $8.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.47, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 0.73.

Ingredion (NYSE:INGR - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 6th. The company reported $2.97 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.44 by $0.53. Ingredion had a return on equity of 19.75% and a net margin of 8.53%. The company had revenue of $1.81 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.84 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.08 EPS. The firm's revenue for the quarter was down 3.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Ingredion Incorporated will post 11.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Ingredion Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 22nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, July 1st will be given a dividend of $0.80 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, July 1st. This represents a $3.20 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.33%. Ingredion's payout ratio is 33.76%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Ingredion news, SVP Larry Fernandes sold 2,400 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $135.82, for a total value of $325,968.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 31,996 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,345,696.72. This represents a 6.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 1.80% of the company's stock.

Ingredion Company Profile

Ingredion Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells sweeteners, starches, nutrition ingredients, and biomaterial solutions derived from wet milling and processing corn, and other starch-based materials to a range of industries in North America, South America, the Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.