Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB) has earned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty brokerages that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have assigned a hold recommendation and thirteen have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $273.45.

Several equities analysts have recently commented on ALB shares. KeyCorp boosted their price target on shares of Albemarle from $270.00 to $291.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, June 26th. Robert W. Baird upgraded shares of Albemarle from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $222.00 to $288.00 in a report on Monday, May 15th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered their price target on shares of Albemarle from $260.00 to $250.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 7th. Credit Suisse Group boosted their price target on shares of Albemarle from $163.00 to $185.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Thursday, August 3rd. Finally, HSBC reduced their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $360.00 to $300.00 in a research note on Friday, June 23rd.

Albemarle Trading Down 5.5 %

NYSE ALB opened at $189.83 on Thursday. Albemarle has a twelve month low of $171.82 and a twelve month high of $334.55. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a current ratio of 1.74. The stock has a market cap of $22.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 5.71, a PEG ratio of 0.66 and a beta of 1.56. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $208.89 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $212.06.

Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 3rd. The specialty chemicals company reported $7.33 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $4.27 by $3.06. Albemarle had a net margin of 40.55% and a return on equity of 45.88%. The firm had revenue of $2.37 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.42 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $3.45 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 60.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Albemarle will post 25.88 EPS for the current year.

Albemarle Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 2nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 15th will be given a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.84%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 14th. Albemarle’s dividend payout ratio is currently 4.81%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in ALB. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in Albemarle by 124,405.7% in the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 104,510,053 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $22,664,050,000 after acquiring an additional 104,426,113 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Albemarle by 0.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,661,001 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $3,021,130,000 after acquiring an additional 75,867 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. increased its stake in Albemarle by 6.0% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 10,157,015 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $2,265,928,000 after acquiring an additional 575,007 shares during the period. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich increased its stake in Albemarle by 93,459.7% in the second quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich now owns 8,086,363 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $1,803,987,000 after acquiring an additional 8,077,720 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp increased its stake in Albemarle by 0.3% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 5,364,655 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $1,188,408,000 after acquiring an additional 16,968 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.71% of the company’s stock.

About Albemarle

Albemarle Corporation develops, manufactures, and markets engineered specialty chemicals worldwide. It operates through three segments: Lithium, Bromine, and Catalysts. The Lithium segment offers lithium compounds, including lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, lithium chloride, and lithium specialties and reagents, such as butyllithium and lithium aluminum hydride for use in lithium batteries for consumer electronics and electric vehicles, high performance greases, thermoplastic elastomers for car tires, rubber soles, plastic bottles, catalysts for chemical reactions, organic synthesis processes in the areas of steroid chemistry and vitamins, life sciences, pharmaceutical industry, and other markets.