Huntsman Co. (NYSE:HUN) Receives Average Recommendation of “Hold” from Brokerages

Shares of Huntsman Co. (NYSE:HUN) have earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the ten ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, five have assigned a hold recommendation and three have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $26.73.

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on HUN. Stifel Nicolaus reduced their target price on Huntsman from $30.00 to $29.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 24th. Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Huntsman from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $25.00 to $32.00 in a research report on Friday, February 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of Huntsman from $24.00 to $26.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on shares of Huntsman from $25.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th.

Institutional Trading of Huntsman

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Quadrant Capital Group LLC increased its stake in Huntsman by 93.0% during the 4th quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC now owns 1,081 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 521 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC acquired a new position in Huntsman during the 4th quarter valued at about $36,000. Montag A & Associates Inc. acquired a new position in Huntsman during the 4th quarter valued at about $45,000. Fidelis Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in Huntsman during the 1st quarter valued at about $45,000. Finally, Quarry LP bought a new position in shares of Huntsman during the 4th quarter valued at about $52,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.81% of the company’s stock.

Huntsman Price Performance

Shares of NYSE HUN opened at $25.36 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a current ratio of 1.97. The company has a market cap of $4.39 billion, a PE ratio of -48.77 and a beta of 1.14. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $25.09 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $24.70. Huntsman has a fifty-two week low of $22.14 and a fifty-two week high of $29.90.

Huntsman (NYSE:HUN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The basic materials company reported ($0.06) earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of ($0.06). Huntsman had a positive return on equity of 0.66% and a negative net margin of 1.49%. The business had revenue of $1.47 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.47 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.20 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 8.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that Huntsman will post 0.43 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Huntsman Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Shareholders of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a dividend of $0.25 per share. This represents a $1.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.94%. This is an increase from Huntsman’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. Huntsman’s dividend payout ratio is -192.31%.

About Huntsman

Huntsman Corporation manufactures and sells diversified organic chemical products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Polyurethanes, Performance Products, and Advanced Materials. The Polyurethanes segment offers polyurethane chemicals, including methyl diphenyl diisocyanate, polyether and polyester polyols, and thermoplastic polyurethane; and aniline, benzene, nitrobenzene and other co-products.