Citi Has Buy Rating On Monsanto After Earnings

Citi Investment Research has a Buy rating and a $82 price target on shares of Monsanto MON after the company reported earnings yesterday. In a note to clients, Citi writes, "MON management seems to have turned the company around as its new value sharing strategy with growers and solid adoption of key new products resulted in meaningful gains in the all-important US corn and soybean markets. The company sold approximately 13mm acres of refuge-reduction corn and ~17mm acres of Roundup Ready 2 Yield (RR2Y) soybeans this spring, each a ~10mm acre improvement compared to last year. Strong performance from these products, further gains in cotton, and the stabilization of the glyphosate business lifted 3Q EPS ~14% ahead of consensus expectations. Focus will now turn to yield performance for the key corn and soybean products, but given the adoption rates this spring, MON has positioned itself well to build on recent momentum in 2012, in our view. We reiterate our Buy on MON." Shares of MON gained $3.36 yesterday to close at $70.26, a gain of 5.02%.