Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.43

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, November 8th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, November 29th will be given a dividend of 0.43 per share by the specialty chemicals company on Friday, December 13th. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.57%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, November 29th.

Cabot has increased its dividend payment by an average of 3.9% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Cabot has a dividend payout ratio of 22.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Cabot to earn $8.48 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.72 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 20.3%.

Cabot Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CBT opened at $109.50 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $5.96 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.25, a P/E/G ratio of 0.97 and a beta of 1.20. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $111.04 and its 200 day simple moving average is $102.82. Cabot has a fifty-two week low of $70.63 and a fifty-two week high of $117.46. The company has a quick ratio of 1.36, a current ratio of 2.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last released its earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.80 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.81 by ($0.01). The firm had revenue of $1 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. Cabot had a return on equity of 26.60% and a net margin of 9.51%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.65 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Cabot will post 7.67 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have issued reports on CBT. UBS Group dropped their price target on Cabot from $103.00 to $98.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. Mizuho boosted their target price on Cabot from $103.00 to $122.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Cabot from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $105.00 target price for the company. in a report on Monday, November 11th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Cabot currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $105.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Hobart Kalkstein sold 34,759 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $115.23, for a total value of $4,005,279.57. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 50,627 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,833,749.21. This represents a 40.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Jeff Ji Zhu sold 14,566 shares of Cabot stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $113.25, for a total value of $1,649,599.50. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 69,449 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,865,099.25. This trade represents a 17.34 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 75,807 shares of company stock valued at $8,352,941. Company insiders own 3.07% of the company’s stock.

About Cabot

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.