Fertilizers makes Agrium grow

On Financial Tides I feel it's important to have a portfolio of stocks that continue to hit new highs to keep your portfolio growing. Agrium -- AGU is just such a stock. Agrium Inc is a leading global producer and marketer of fertilizer and a major retail supplier of agricultural products and services in both North America and Argentina. They produce and market four primary groups of fertilizers: nitrogen, phosphate, potash and sulphur. Their strategy is to grow through incremental expansion of their existing operations and acquisitions as well as the development, commercialization and marketing of new products and international opportunities.

The buzz is on this stock with positive press almost every day. The analysts consensus is a 9.3% sales growth for next year and an unheard of 94% earnings per share growth projection. There are now 6 buy recommendations out there.

The stock came to my attention when a BarChart screening for stocks hitting new highs showed AGU has hit 13 new highs in the last 20 trading sessions and has hit 5 out of 5 recently. A new high was set today and at this time it's only 1.11% off that 260 day new high. Price appreciation in the last 65 days has been a respectable 19.54%. BarChart's technical indicators have 12 buy signals out of 13 for a 96% buy rating.

On other sites Wall Street Survivor Mark's checklist has a Survivor Sentiment rating of 5/5 and a fundamental rating of 4/5. On Motey Fool the CAPS members think it will out perform the market with a vote of 1651 to 40 with the All Star members giving it a 417 to 9 vote. The Wall Street consensus vote is 7 to 1.

This stock has the analysts giving positive buy ratings, a BarChart buy rating of 96% and positive confirmation from other opinion polls.

If you buy around 58 put in a protective stop loss of not less than 53.

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email FinancialTides@gmail.com

Disclosure: I hold no positions in AGU at the time of publication.