Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. Sells 12,390 Shares of Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB)

Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. trimmed its holdings in shares of Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB) by 4.0% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 298,738 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock after selling 12,390 shares during the quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. owned 0.25% of Albemarle worth $21,515,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 2.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 14,594,499 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $1,256,294,000 after purchasing an additional 359,014 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 2.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,795,891 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $240,044,000 after purchasing an additional 53,985 shares during the last quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Albemarle by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC now owns 1,990,762 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $171,365,000 after purchasing an additional 25,207 shares during the last quarter. Earnest Partners LLC increased its stake in shares of Albemarle by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Earnest Partners LLC now owns 1,432,153 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $123,280,000 after buying an additional 8,243 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of Albemarle by 12.1% in the fourth quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,290,797 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $111,112,000 after acquiring an additional 139,600 shares in the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on ALB. Robert W. Baird lowered their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $77.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 15th. Truist Financial lowered their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $85.00 to $65.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $80.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, May 6th. Piper Sandler set a $68.00 price objective on shares of Albemarle and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 14th. Finally, KeyCorp lowered their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $102.00 to $95.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have given a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $91.62.

Albemarle Price Performance

Shares of ALB stock opened at $67.39 on Friday. Albemarle Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $49.43 and a fifty-two week high of $113.91. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.06 and a beta of 1.63. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a current ratio of 2.11. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $59.86 and its 200-day simple moving average is $71.49.

Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 30th. The specialty chemicals company reported ($0.18) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.62) by $0.44. Albemarle had a negative return on equity of 1.92% and a negative net margin of 22.39%. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.18 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.26 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 20.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Albemarle Corporation will post -0.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Albemarle Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 13th were paid a dividend of $0.405 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, June 13th. This represents a $1.62 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.40%. Albemarle’s payout ratio is -14.57%.

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.