Dicker: Opportunities in Fertilizer Companies

With news out of Russia, prices could fall. Dan Dicker says this could mean a chance to buy into this sector.
By Daniel Dicker ,

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- I was talking today to Joe Deaux about the collapse of the fertilizer stocks and whether there was an opportunity being created. I think there is.

What happened overnight was a statement from the CEO of one of the six largest providers of potash in the world, which collectively control 90% of the world market. CEO Vladislav Baumgertner announced his company,

Uralkali

would be breaking up its sales venture with another of the big seven providers in Belarus --

Belaruskali

. He predicted that potash prices would plummet to under $300 a ton by the end of the year, a 25% drop from current prices.

The rumblings between old Soviet states' companies arguing and playing chicken games with price wars has the rest of the potash-producing company stocks, including

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan

(POT)

and

Mosaic

(MOS) - Get Report

, reeling. A breakup in the cooperation of the Russian potash providers threatens a market flooding designed to destroy the lesser players.

I don't believe it much. The Russian commodity titans created by

perestroika

are world renowned for big-money hardball threats. The truth is that sales arrangements between the Russian companies have been routinely ignored by many of the bigger players. That overproduction of "quotas" has hurt the price of potash in 2013, angering the smaller producers like Uralkali and leaving them few options besides threats to explode the collective price-fixing arrangement entirely.

Canadian potash giant Potash is down about 20% Tuesday and U.S. potash company Mosaic is down about 19%.

But none of these companies wants a price war, and I think they'll ultimately avoid one. Uralkali is looking for promises from the largest potash producers to stay in line with production limits that they've already defined. With those promises, all will again be well with the potash "cartel."

One way to try and take advantage of this quick downturn in fertilizer shares would be to buy calls in a company like Mosaic.

At the time of publication the author had no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

Follow @dan_dicker

This article was written by an independent contributor, separate from TheStreet's regular news coverage.

Dan Dicker has been a floor trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange with more than 25 years of oil trading experience. He is a licensed commodities trade adviser.

Dan is currently President of

MercBloc LLC,

a wealth management firm and is the author of

"Oil's Endless Bid,"

published in March of 2011 by John Wiley and Sons.

Dan Dicker has appeared as an energy analyst since 2002 with all the major financial news networks. He has lent his expertise in hundreds of live radio and television broadcasts on

CNBC

,

Bloomberg

US and UK and

CNNfn.

Dan obtained a bachelor of arts degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1982.

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