Arizona State Retirement System Has $1.31 Million Stock Holdings in Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT)

Arizona State Retirement System lessened its stake in shares of Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) by 2.2% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 15,637 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock after selling 349 shares during the quarter. Arizona State Retirement System’s holdings in Cabot were worth $1,306,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of CBT. BlackRock Inc. increased its position in Cabot by 11.0% during the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 6,931,530 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $474,186,000 after acquiring an additional 686,769 shares during the period. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. increased its position in Cabot by 237.4% during the second quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 600,154 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $38,284,000 after acquiring an additional 422,273 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Cabot by 6.5% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,120,453 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $418,701,000 after acquiring an additional 374,834 shares during the period. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its position in Cabot by 11.1% during the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 3,541,491 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $242,273,000 after acquiring an additional 353,154 shares during the period. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its position in Cabot by 272.1% during the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 453,292 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $31,010,000 after acquiring an additional 331,479 shares during the period. 93.18% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently commented on CBT shares. StockNews.com lowered shares of Cabot from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 14th. UBS Group lowered shares of Cabot from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $90.00 to $87.00 in a report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Mizuho initiated coverage on shares of Cabot in a report on Wednesday, March 27th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $104.00 target price on the stock. Two analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cabot presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $87.67.

Cabot Price Performance

CBT stock opened at $93.27 on Monday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.30, a current ratio of 2.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74. Cabot Co. has a 12 month low of $63.73 and a 12 month high of $98.34. The firm has a market cap of $5.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.11, a P/E/G ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.28. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $86.81 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $78.99.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 5th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.49 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $958.00 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $927.28 million. Cabot had a net margin of 11.24% and a return on equity of 25.52%. On average, analysts anticipate that Cabot Co. will post 6.58 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Cabot

In related news, EVP Jeff Ji Zhu sold 55,233 shares of Cabot stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.91, for a total transaction of $4,413,669.03. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 97,201 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,767,331.91. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 3.07% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.