Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) Receives Average Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) has received a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the five ratings firms that are presently covering the firm, MarketBeat.com reports. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $91.80.

A number of analysts have issued reports on CBT shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered shares of Cabot from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $88.00 to $95.00 in a research note on Thursday, April 18th. Mizuho upped their target price on shares of Cabot from $104.00 to $109.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 7th. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Cabot from $100.00 to $103.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 7th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Cabot from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, June 24th.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cabot

In other news, SVP Karen A. Kalita sold 13,764 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $101.73, for a total value of $1,400,211.72. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 34,312 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,490,559.76. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 3.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cabot

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of CBT. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Cabot in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $41,471,000. Sei Investments Co. lifted its holdings in shares of Cabot by 33.9% during the fourth quarter. Sei Investments Co. now owns 812,614 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $67,854,000 after purchasing an additional 205,582 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Cabot by 350.6% during the third quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 176,452 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $12,223,000 after purchasing an additional 137,294 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in shares of Cabot by 22.9% during the first quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 521,486 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $48,081,000 after purchasing an additional 97,101 shares during the period. Finally, Eventide Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cabot during the fourth quarter worth $6,919,000. 93.18% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Cabot Trading Up 1.3 %

NYSE CBT opened at $89.54 on Tuesday. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $97.54 and its two-hundred day moving average is $89.03. Cabot has a 12 month low of $64.51 and a 12 month high of $103.49. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 2.24 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 11.33, a PEG ratio of 0.88 and a beta of 1.20.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 6th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.66 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $1.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.04 billion. Cabot had a net margin of 11.51% and a return on equity of 26.21%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.33 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cabot will post 6.78 earnings per share for the current year.

Cabot Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 31st were paid a $0.43 dividend. This is a positive change from Cabot’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.92%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, May 31st. Cabot’s dividend payout ratio is currently 21.77%.

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.