Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) Short Interest Update

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) saw a large drop in short interest in March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 2,940,000 shares, a drop of 15.3% from the February 28th total of 3,470,000 shares. Currently, 5.5% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 441,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 6.7 days.

Institutional Trading of Cabot

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CBT. Barclays PLC boosted its stake in shares of Cabot by 103.9% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 113,614 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $12,699,000 after purchasing an additional 57,907 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. acquired a new position in Cabot in the third quarter valued at $654,000. Delta Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in Cabot during the fourth quarter valued at $274,000. Empowered Funds LLC acquired a new stake in Cabot during the 4th quarter worth about $1,269,000. Finally, Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. raised its position in shares of Cabot by 20.8% in the 4th quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 40,394 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $3,688,000 after acquiring an additional 6,950 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 93.18% of the company’s stock.

Cabot Stock Up 1.1 %

NYSE:CBT opened at $83.22 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 2.00 and a quick ratio of 1.29. Cabot has a one year low of $79.57 and a one year high of $117.46. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $85.55 and its 200 day simple moving average is $98.00. The company has a market cap of $4.51 billion, a PE ratio of 11.05, a P/E/G ratio of 0.74 and a beta of 1.21.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 3rd. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.76 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.74 by $0.02. Cabot had a net margin of 10.60% and a return on equity of 26.79%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Cabot will post 7.57 earnings per share for the current year.

Cabot Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 28th were given a dividend of $0.43 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 28th. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.07%. Cabot’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 22.84%.

Cabot announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, December 3rd that authorizes the company to repurchase 10,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the specialty chemicals company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CBT has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. StockNews.com cut shares of Cabot from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Mizuho lowered their price target on shares of Cabot from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on Cabot from $105.00 to $85.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, February 21st. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $97.00.

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.