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

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) declared a quarterly dividend on Friday, November 8th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, November 29th will be paid 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 by an average of 3.9% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Cabot has a dividend payout ratio of 22.5% meaning 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

NYSE CBT opened at $109.50 on Thursday. Cabot has a 1 year low of $70.63 and a 1 year high of $117.46. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $111.04 and a 200 day simple moving average of $102.82. The company has a current ratio of 2.08, a quick ratio of 1.36 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68. The company 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.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.80 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.81 by ($0.01). Cabot had a net margin of 9.51% and a return on equity of 26.60%. The business had revenue of $1 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.01 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.65 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 3.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Cabot will post 7.67 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently weighed in on CBT. Mizuho increased their price objective on Cabot from $103.00 to $122.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. UBS Group reduced their price target on shares of Cabot from $103.00 to $98.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Cabot from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $105.00 price objective on the stock. in a report on Monday, November 11th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $105.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Jeff Ji Zhu sold 14,566 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $113.25, for a total transaction of $1,649,599.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 69,449 shares in the company, valued at $7,865,099.25. This trade represents a 17.34 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Sean D. Keohane sold 25,617 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $101.55, for a total value of $2,601,406.35. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 331,174 shares in the company, valued at $33,630,719.70. This trade represents a 7.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 75,807 shares of company stock worth $8,352,941 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 3.07% of the company’s stock.

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.