Eastern Bank Trims Holdings in Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT)

Eastern Bank reduced its stake in Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) by 2.6% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 262,270 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock after selling 7,000 shares during the quarter. Eastern Bank owned about 0.48% of Cabot worth $23,948,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in CBT. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC boosted its position in shares of Cabot by 11.2% in the 2nd quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC now owns 5,205 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $478,000 after purchasing an additional 523 shares in the last quarter. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in Cabot during the 2nd quarter valued at $213,000. American Century Companies Inc. raised its stake in Cabot by 7.3% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 976,709 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $89,750,000 after buying an additional 66,171 shares during the last quarter. DekaBank Deutsche Girozentrale purchased a new stake in shares of Cabot in the 2nd quarter worth $412,000. Finally, Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Cabot by 24.0% in the 2nd quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 42,240 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $3,881,000 after purchasing an additional 8,175 shares in the last quarter. 93.18% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Cabot from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $105.00 target price for the company. in a report on Monday, November 11th. Mizuho lowered their price target on shares of Cabot from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $102.00.

Cabot Price Performance

NYSE CBT traded up $2.08 during trading hours on Monday, hitting $88.79. 146,174 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 278,329. Cabot Co. has a 52-week low of $70.63 and a 52-week high of $117.46. The company has a market capitalization of $4.83 billion, a PE ratio of 13.17, a PEG ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 1.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a current ratio of 2.08 and a quick ratio of 1.36. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $102.39 and its 200-day moving average is $102.43.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, November 4th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.80 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.81 by ($0.01). Cabot had a return on equity of 26.60% and a net margin of 9.51%. The company had revenue of $1 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.01 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.65 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Cabot Co. will post 7.67 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cabot Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 28th will be given a dividend of $0.43 per share. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.94%. Cabot’s payout ratio is currently 25.52%.

Cabot declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 3rd that permits the company to repurchase 10,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization permits the specialty chemicals company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other Cabot news, EVP Hobart Kalkstein sold 34,759 shares of Cabot stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $115.23, for a total transaction of $4,005,279.57. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 50,627 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,833,749.21. The trade was a 40.71 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Lisa M. Dumont sold 865 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $111.74, for a total transaction of $96,655.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,742 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,088,571.08. This represents a 8.15 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 50,190 shares of company stock valued at $5,751,534 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 3.07% of the company’s stock.

Cabot 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.