Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) Shares Gap Down Following Analyst Downgrade

Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB)’s share price gapped down prior to trading on Monday after Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price target on the stock from $212.00 to $163.00. The stock had previously closed at $127.98, but opened at $125.09. Royal Bank of Canada currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Albemarle shares last traded at $121.66, with a volume of 566,493 shares.

ALB has been the topic of several other research reports. Bank of America downgraded shares of Albemarle from a “neutral” rating to an “underperform” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $212.00 to $161.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 18th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their price objective 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. Wells Fargo & Company cut their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $260.00 to $210.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, October 9th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $295.00 to $280.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, September 8th. Finally, KeyCorp cut their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $254.00 to $200.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $234.50.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Albemarle

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its position in Albemarle by 124,405.7% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 104,510,053 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $22,664,050,000 after purchasing an additional 104,426,113 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,661,001 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $3,021,130,000 after buying an additional 75,867 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 6.0% during the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 10,157,015 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $2,265,928,000 after buying an additional 575,007 shares in the last quarter. Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd Zurich lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 93,459.7% during the 2nd 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 buying an additional 8,077,720 shares in the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 5,364,655 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $1,188,408,000 after buying an additional 16,968 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 84.71% of the company’s stock.

Albemarle Stock Down 6.6 %

The stock has a market cap of $14.02 billion, a PE ratio of 4.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.43 and a beta of 1.67. The company has a current ratio of 1.74, a quick ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $164.07 and a 200-day moving average price of $192.02.

Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 2nd. The specialty chemicals company reported $2.74 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.70 by ($0.96). Albemarle had a net margin of 33.63% and a return on equity of 36.98%. The firm had revenue of $2.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.52 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $7.50 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that Albemarle Co. will post 25.32 earnings per share for the current year.

Albemarle Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Friday, December 15th will be paid a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.34%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, December 14th. Albemarle’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.67%.

Albemarle Company Profile

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.