Fertiliser stock zooms 79% from March low. Should you book profits or hold?

Shares of Paradeep Phosphates hit a new high of ₹149, gaining 3.5 per cent on the BSE in Thursday's intra-day trade amid heavy volumes in an otherwise weak market.

Paradeep Phosphates share price today: Shares of Paradeep Phosphates (PPL) hit a new high of ₹149, gaining 3.5 per cent on the BSE in Thursday’s intra-day trade amid heavy volumes in an otherwise weak market. At 12:46 PM, the stock price of the fertiliser company was trading 2.7 per cent higher at ₹147.90, as compared to 0.33 per cent decline in BSE Sensex. A combined 5.5 million equity shares, representing 0.67 per cent, of total equity of PPL have changed hands on the NSE and BSE.

 

Past price performance of PPL

The share price of PPL has zoomed 79 per cent from its previous month low of ₹83.35 touched on March 3, 2025. It has more-than-doubled, or skyrocketed 140 per cent, from its 52-week low of ₹62 touched on June 6, 2024.

 

Reasons for sharp surge in stock price of PPL 

India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted an “above normal” monsoon in 2025, which quantitatively could be 105 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA). The private weather forecasting agency Skymet also said that cumulative all-India southwest monsoon this year could be “normal” at 103 per cent of the LPA. The better performance of monsoons this year bodes well for sowing and agriculture produce prospects.

 

Foreign Portfolio Investors, Mutual Funds hike stake in March 2025 quarter

Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) as well as domestic mutual funds (MFs) have raised their holding in the PPL by nearly 3 percentage points during the quarter ended March 2025 (Q4FY25), the shareholding pattern data shows.

 

As per data, FPIs' stake in PPL increased to 7.18 per cent from 5.4 per cent at the end of December 2024 quarter (Q3FY25). MFs holding in the company rose to 24.06 per cent from 23.29 per cent in the previous quarter. However, retail individual shareholders' stake in PPL declined to 11.27 per cent from 11.92 per cent.

Financial performance for first nine months of FY25

 

For the first nine months (April to December) of the financial year 2024 -25 (FY25), production and sales volumes stood at 1,908,313 MT and 2,290,443 MT, reflecting a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 4 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively. Additionally, the company’s nano fertiliser segment gained traction, with about 1.40 million bottles sold in the first nine months of FY25.

 

The management said the company maintained steady performance in production and sales over the past quarters, aided by favourable rainfall, moderate inventory levels, and government support. Given the growing need for food security, healthy soil, and balanced fertilisation, coupled with favorable government policies, the fertiliser demand in the country is expected to remain strong, the management said.

 

Brokerage views on PPL – Elara Capital

 

Fertiliser companies should continue to outperform their agrochemical counterparts in Q4FY25, driven by healthy volume growth and better profitability. Structurally as well as in the short-term, the brokerage firm prefers fertiliser companies such as Coromandel International and Paradeep over agrochemical sector given that the import replacement of volume and profits is set to play out for the fertiliser sector.

 

The fertiliser industry is also fully insulated from the impact of US tariffs. Further, China is not a major player in the Indian fertiliser industry because of huge barriers to entry, the brokerage firm said in a sector report. However, the stock has achieved the brokerage firm’s target price of ₹147 per share.

 

About Paradeep Phosphates

  PPL is one of India’s largest private sector phosphatic players, producing a wide range of phosphatic grades, including DAP, N-10, N-12, N-14, N-19, N-20 and N28. At present, PPL has a total capacity of around 3 million MT, of which 0.4 million MT is urea and the balance 2.6 million MT is phosphates. The company has two large manufacturing facilities - one at Paradeep in Odisha and another at Zuarinagar, Goa.