Cabot (NYSE:CBT) Lowered to “Hold” Rating by StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of Cabot (NYSE:CBT) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday.

CBT has been the topic of several other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered Cabot from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $105.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Mizuho dropped their price target on Cabot from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $102.00.

Cabot Stock Performance

Shares of CBT opened at $86.39 on Monday. The business’s 50 day moving average is $92.96 and its two-hundred day moving average is $101.70. Cabot has a 52-week low of $78.61 and a 52-week high of $117.46. The firm has a market cap of $4.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.47, a PEG ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.19. The company has a quick ratio of 1.36, a current ratio of 2.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 3rd. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.76 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.74 by $0.02. Cabot had a return on equity of 26.79% and a net margin of 10.60%. Analysts forecast that Cabot will post 7.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cabot Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 28th will be issued a dividend of $0.43 per share. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.99%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 28th. Cabot’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 22.84%.

Cabot declared that its board has initiated a share repurchase program on Tuesday, December 3rd that permits the company to buyback 10,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the specialty chemicals company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Jeff Ji Zhu sold 14,566 shares of Cabot stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $113.25, for a total transaction of $1,649,599.50. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 69,449 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,865,099.25. The trade was a 17.34 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Lisa M. Dumont sold 865 shares of Cabot stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $111.74, for a total value of $96,655.10. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,742 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,088,571.08. The trade was a 8.15 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 3.03% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cabot

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CBT. Wolff Wiese Magana LLC acquired a new position in shares of Cabot in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. R Squared Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Cabot during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its holdings in shares of Cabot by 53.9% during the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 371 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $41,000 after buying an additional 130 shares during the last quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Cabot by 197.9% during the 3rd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 417 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $47,000 after buying an additional 277 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CWM LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Cabot by 35.6% during the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 564 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $63,000 after buying an additional 148 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.18% of the company’s stock.

Cabot Company Profile

Cabot Corporation operates as a specialty chemicals and performance materials company. The company operates through two segments, Reinforcement Materials and Performance Chemicals. It offers reinforcing carbons that are used in tires as a rubber reinforcing agent and performance additive, as well as in industrial products, such as hoses, belts, extruded profiles, and molded goods; and engineered elastomer composites solutions.