DuPont Is No Longer Your Father's Paint Company

E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Company (DD) has been transforming over the past few years and will continue its transformation in the foreseeable future. DuPont is changing its identity as a chemical conglomerate to a food and agriculture company. Despite positioning the company to benefit from secular growth trends, it changes the character of the business. 

In essence, management is moving the company away from being a sleepy chemical play to a research driven growth company. As a result of this effort, management has been making acquisitions in the food and agriculture industry and selling more capital intensive and cyclical businesses such as the Performance Coating business. Yet, despite the stock being up 30% year-to-date, the stock still represents an asymmetric risk vs. return opportunity. Read More : DuPont

E. I. du Pont de Nemours' CEO Discusses Q3 2013 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

DuPont’s third quarter performance. Our segment results were generally in line with our July expectations, double digit earnings improvements from Performance Materials, Electronics & Communications, Safety & Protection and Industrial Biosciences paired with ongoing productivity initiatives across the company helped to offset the expected earnings decline from our Performance Chemical segment.

Operating earnings of $0.45 per share were above our guidance due to a one point reduction in the annual tax rate, gains related to our Pannar acquisition and a joint venture asset both of which we expected in the fourth quarter. However, the strength of the dollar were greater headwinds than we expected.

  

As a result we realized a higher portion of the second half operating earnings in the third quarter in the 40% we anticipated in July. Third quarter net sales about $7.7 billion increased 5%, largely due to 9% higher volumes first at the week prior year. Read More : E. I. du Pont.

DuPont, with Deere & Co, to roll out precision farming program

DuPont Pioneer, the agricultural seed unit of DuPont ( E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co ), said Friday that it has aligned with farm machinery company Deere & Co ( Deere & Company) in a race against rival Monsanto Co to provide farmers with enhanced "precision agriculture" analyses aimed at maximizing crop production.

DuPont Pioneer, the agricultural seed unit of DuPont, said Friday that it has aligned with farm machinery company Deere & Company in a race against rival Monsanto Co to provide farmers with enhanced "precision agriculture" analyses aimed at maximizing crop production.

The programs these companies will roll out next year will give farmers guidance on a number of field management decisions, including planting, crop treatment, pest control and even the best time to harvest. Read More: E I Du Pont De Nemours And Co stock exchange

DuPont: Does This Sell-Off Mean More Buying For You?

E. I. du Pont de Nemours' (DD) operating earnings for third quarter of fiscal year 2013 increased year over year from $0.43 per share to $0.45 per share. This increase in operating income is attributed to growth in DuPont's agriculture business. However, decline in the operating income from the chemical business partially counterbalanced the growth in its overall operating income. Going forward, DuPont expects to increase its operating income by spinning off this loss making business.

After the spin-off, the company will focus more on its other growing segment - agriculture. Consequently, based on last year's segmental revenue distribution. Read More : DuPont's Shareholders

 

This Is How DuPont Will Remain Profitable Long Term

E.I. du Pont de Nemours (DD) has been a dependable stalwart for decades in the American markets. It has been in the process of a very important identity transition as a company for the last couple years, transitioning from a chemical company to an Agri-related business. I believe it is in the last stages of its transition with the sales of its last division. 

This is going to be a major move for the company and when it's complete, I would expect the company become much more profitable. Let's take a look at the "performance chemical division" and see how the company is transitioning.DuPont had a great third quarter! Both revenues and profits were higher than last year, but only profits beat analyst expectations. Earnings rose 41% compared to a year ago and revenue grew by 4.6% to $7.74 billion which is very close to the $7.78 billion Wall Street expected. Read More : DuPont

One Put, One Call Option To Know About for DuPont

Consistently, one of the more popular stocks people enter into their stock options watchlist at Stock Options Channel is DuPont (NYSE: DD). So this week we highlight one interesting put contract, and one interesting call contract, from the April 2014 expiration for DD.

The put contract our YieldBoost algorithm identified as particularly interesting, is at the $52.50 strike, which has a bid at the time of this writing of 98 cents. Collecting that bid as the premium represents a 1.9% return against the $52.50 commitment, or a 4.1% annualized rate of return (at Online Stock Options Channel we call this the YieldBoost).

Selling a put does not give an investor access to DD’s upside potential the way owning shares would, because the put seller only ends up owning shares in the scenario where the contract is exercised. Read More: Investing

Netflix Hits New High; Apple Climbing Ahead of Event; DD, TRV and UTX Report

Three Dow components reported earnings this morning: Dupont (DD), Travelers (TRV), and United Technologies (UTX). Looking at all-three alphabetically, Dupont beat by 4-cents a share for the quarter with adjusted earnings of 45-cents a share. Sales also topped estimates. Travelers beat on earnings. But revenues fell shy of expectations at $5.71-billion. Nevertheless it has been trading up more than 2% on this report. As for United Technologies, it was down about 2% on a revenue miss, but has now moved into the green. Sales were nearly $700-million short of estimates though earnings beat by a penny.

Among the other companies reporting this morning: Coach (COH), Delta Airlines (DAL), Harley Davidson (HOG), Kimberly-Clark (KMB), Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Whirlpool (WHR) which has shot up more than 6% in the premarket on its earnings. Read More:  Netflix Hits New High.

The Dow Chemical Co., E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., Huntsman Corp., and Airgas Inc.

The Dow Chemical Co. fluctuated between $39.20 and $39.80 before ending the Thursday's session 0.53% higher at $39.47. A total of 5.31 million shares were traded, which is below the daily average volume of 8.16 million. The company's shares have gained 12.64% in the previous three months, outperforming the S&P 500, which advanced 4.20% during the same period. Furthermore, The Dow Chemical Co.'s stock is trading above its 50-day and 200-day moving averages of $39.37 and $35.01, respectively. Read More:  The Dow Chemical Co.

Precision BioSciences and DuPont Pioneer Announce Publication of Plant Genome Engineering Success

Precision BioSciences, Inc., and DuPont Pioneer today announced that The Plant Journal has published an article detailing collaborative cutting-edge research to generate male-sterile corn plants. Researchers at Pioneer used Precision’s advanced genome engineering technology, called DNE, to “knockout” or disable the function of the ms26 gene in corn.

Knocking out this gene has enabled Pioneer to produce corn plants that are male-sterile, a powerful tool for hybrid seed production.

The article further details how the Precision and Pioneer research teams were able to optimize a DNE gene-editing tool to maximize its efficiency in corn. This optimization process, which involves modulating the DNA-cutting activity of a gene-editing enzyme, can only be performed with Precision’s proprietary DNE technology. The optimization step was found to be critical for high-efficiency gene-editing activity in corn. Read more Precision BioSciences and DuPont.