Corteva

Corteva is pulling far more profit out of roughly the same amount of sales. Last quarter revenue actually fell 1 percent, and operating profit still rose 4 percent, with margins widening by almost 2 full percentage points. Across the first half of the year sales grew 4 percent while operating profit grew 10 percent and operating earnings per share grew 14 percent. Management liked that trend enough to raise full year guidance to between 4.1 and 4.3 billion dollars of operating profit.

The seed business is the crown jewel and it keeps getting stronger. In the first half it delivered 7.56 billion dollars of sales and 3.0 billion dollars of operating profit, up 11 percent, with margins improving by more than 2 percentage points. A growing slice of that comes from licensing its genetics to other companies, which is close to pure profit because Corteva does not have to manufacture anything. The company also generated 3.5 billion dollars of cash from operations last year, up 51 percent, which funded more than 1.5 billion dollars returned to shareholders.

You are paying a premium price for a business that is barely growing. Sales rose just under 3 percent last year and the company's own guidance points to more of the same, yet the stock trades at roughly 22 times the operating earnings it expects to make this year. That is a rich multiple for low single digit growth, and it means a lot of good news is already in the price. If the margin gains slow down, there is not much sales growth underneath to catch the stock.

On October 1, 2026 Corteva plans to split itself into two separate public companies, one built around seed and one around crop protection. Anyone holding the stock through that date is expected to end up owning a piece of both, and the two halves are far from equal: seed produced roughly 79 percent of segment operating profit in the first half, while crop protection produced only about 21 percent. Crop protection is also the weaker half right now, with prices down 4 percent last quarter as cheap generic competition squeezes Latin America. Big breakups also bring one time costs and distraction, and Corteva still carries legacy environmental and legal liabilities from its DuPont heritage.