FMC Falls 2.4% After Forecasting Rising Costs: Wilmington Mover

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- FMC Corp., a Philadelphia-based maker of specialty chemical and agricultural products, fell the most in more than a month after forecasting a rise in some operating costs.

FMC fell 2.4 percent to $92.80 at the close in New York, the biggest drop since Dec. 28. The shares touched a 52-week high of $95.58 yesterday.

The company’s specialty chemicals unit will have unchanged earnings in the first quarter compared with a year earlier as increased prices are offset by higher raw material and energy costs, FMC said in a release issued after the close of regular U.S. trading yesterday.

“Operationally, the guidance was not in line with what most analysts were looking for,” Michael Harrison, an analyst with First Analysis Securities Corp. in Chicago who rates the shares “overweight,” said in a phone interview today.

FMC sells industrial chemicals and agricultural products, including lithium carbonate, an ingredient in lithium batteries.

--With assistance from Jack Kaskey in Houston. Editors: Tina Davis, Jasmina Kelemen

To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Church in Wilmington at schurch3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net