Scoreboard / CF
CF Industries Holdings CF
Week of August 27 to September 3, 2026 · Updated September 4, 2026
Setup Snapshot
The Setup in One Card
How CF scored, how it moved against the market, and the catalyst behind the move. A high score means the stock deserves research time, not that it is a buy.
Friday Five Score
Weekly Rank
02 of 5
Sector Trend
Slippingdown 1.1 percent
Actionability
Extended
Catalyst
Supply ShockNew strikes on Iran tightened a nitrogen market already short 4.0 to 4.5 million tons of traded urea
Returns are measured from the Thursday, August 27 close to the Thursday, September 3 close. Benchmarks: S&P 500 +0.2% and Nasdaq Composite +0.2% for the week. Benchmark figures are official index closes; sector figures use SPDR sector ETF closes because the official S&P sector index closes for this window were not yet published at press time.
Why It Moved
The Story Behind the Move
Catalyst
The United States completed a wave of strikes against Iran on September 1, 2026 and Iran retaliated across five countries, tightening a nitrogen market already constrained by the Strait of Hormuz. CF stated in its August 5 second quarter release that the conflict has removed approximately 4.0 to 4.5 million metric tons of urea and about 1 million metric tons of ammonia from Middle East supply, a region that normally accounts for 25 to 30 percent of globally traded ammonia and 35 to 40 percent of globally traded urea. CF rose 3.37 percent on August 31, 4.28 percent on September 1 and 2.71 percent on September 2.
Why It Mattered
It is the second order version of the trade everyone else made this week. Fertilizer is made from natural gas, so a war that disrupts gas disrupts fertilizer, and the whole nitrogen complex moved together rather than CF alone, with Nutrien up 10.5 percent. CF also carries a correlation of negative 0.26 to the S&P 500 over three months, so it is not doing the same thing as the index.
Risk Note
This is a commodity price, not a company. CF published nothing this week and it rose on 1.20 times normal volume, the thinnest confirmation of the five picks. A single de-escalation headline took 6.6 percent out of crude in a week in early August, and the same headline would take the nitrogen bid with it.
Reader Takeaway
When a shock hits an obvious industry, look one step down the supply chain for the version of the trade that is not crowded. The cost of what a thing is made from moves before the thing itself does.
Continue the Research
Put CF Back in Context
The stock page is one piece of the weekly research. Continue with the original issue, the full public ranking, or the method behind the analysis.
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