Scotiabank Lowers Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) Price Target to $150.00

Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) had its price objective trimmed by Scotiabank from $160.00 to $150.00 in a report published on Monday morning, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a sector outperform rating on the specialty chemicals company’s stock. Scotiabank also issued estimates for Albemarle’s FY2024 earnings at $2.39 EPS and FY2025 earnings at $9.48 EPS.

ALB has been the subject of a number of other research reports. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Albemarle from $137.00 to $125.00 and set a neutral rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. KeyCorp decreased their target price on shares of Albemarle from $178.00 to $159.00 and set an overweight rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on shares of Albemarle in a research report on Friday, March 1st. They issued a peer perform rating for the company. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Albemarle from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $138.00 to $157.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Monday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and eleven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $172.05.

Albemarle Stock Down 0.9 %

Albemarle stock opened at $130.40 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.42, a P/E/G ratio of 2.80 and a beta of 1.65. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $123.47 and a 200-day simple moving average of $125.93. Albemarle has a one year low of $106.69 and a one year high of $247.44. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 1.91 and a current ratio of 2.84.

Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The specialty chemicals company reported $0.26 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.35 by ($0.09). The company had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.29 billion. Albemarle had a net margin of 4.02% and a return on equity of 14.53%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 47.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $10.32 EPS. As a group, equities analysts expect that Albemarle will post 2.86 earnings per share for the current year.

Albemarle Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 14th will be issued a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.23%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 14th. Albemarle’s payout ratio is 58.18%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ALB. Eagle Strategies LLC lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 149.3% in the third quarter. Eagle Strategies LLC now owns 14,058 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $2,391,000 after purchasing an additional 8,420 shares in the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 5.4% in the third quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 283,876 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $48,270,000 after purchasing an additional 14,593 shares in the last quarter. Roffman Miller Associates Inc. PA lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 430.7% in the fourth quarter. Roffman Miller Associates Inc. PA now owns 43,119 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $6,230,000 after purchasing an additional 34,994 shares in the last quarter. Kestra Advisory Services LLC lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 80.3% in the third quarter. Kestra Advisory Services LLC now owns 19,757 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $3,359,000 after purchasing an additional 8,799 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 8.9% in the third quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 412,821 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $70,179,000 after purchasing an additional 33,662 shares in the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Albemarle

Albemarle Corporation develops, manufactures, and markets engineered specialty chemicals worldwide. It operates through three segments: Energy Storage, Specialties and Ketjen. The Energy Storage segment offers lithium compounds, including lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, and lithium chloride; technical services for the handling and use of reactive lithium products; and lithium-containing by-products recycling services.