Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Analysts

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) has earned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the five brokerages that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price objective among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $91.80.

Several brokerages have commented on CBT. UBS Group boosted their target price on Cabot from $100.00 to $103.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 7th. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Cabot from $104.00 to $109.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 7th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut shares of Cabot from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $88.00 to $95.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 18th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Cabot from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report 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 on Friday, May 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.73, for a total transaction of $1,400,211.72. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 34,312 shares in the company, valued at $3,490,559.76. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Corporate insiders own 3.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cabot

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Los Angeles Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Cabot in the fourth quarter valued at $894,000. Eventide Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Cabot in the fourth quarter valued at $6,919,000. Vontobel Holding Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Cabot in the fourth quarter valued at $6,248,000. Teacher Retirement System of Texas lifted its stake in shares of Cabot by 66.7% in the fourth quarter. Teacher Retirement System of Texas now owns 18,878 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $1,576,000 after buying an additional 7,556 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sei Investments Co. lifted its position 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 valued at $67,854,000 after purchasing an additional 205,582 shares in the last quarter. 93.18% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Cabot Stock Down 2.4 %

NYSE CBT opened at $89.68 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 2.24, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72. Cabot has a 1-year low of $64.15 and a 1-year high of $103.49. The company has a 50 day moving average of $97.94 and a 200-day moving average of $88.81. The company has a market cap of $4.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.35, a PEG ratio of 0.91 and a beta of 1.21.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 6th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.66 by $0.12. Cabot had a net margin of 11.51% and a return on equity of 26.21%. The company had revenue of $1.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.04 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.33 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 1.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Cabot will post 6.78 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cabot Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, June 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 31st were given a $0.43 dividend. This is a boost 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 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.