Cabot (NYSE:CBT) Announces Quarterly Earnings Results, Beats Expectations By $0.12 EPS

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.78 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.66 by $0.12, Briefing.com reports. Cabot had a net margin of 11.24% and a return on equity of 25.52%. The business had revenue of $1.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.04 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.33 earnings per share. Cabot’s quarterly revenue was down 1.4% on a year-over-year basis. Cabot updated its FY24 guidance to $6.65-6.85 EPS and its FY 2024 guidance to 6.650-6.850 EPS.

Cabot Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:CBT opened at $101.37 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.74, a quick ratio of 1.30 and a current ratio of 2.04. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $91.52 and a 200 day moving average price of $82.05. Cabot has a fifty-two week low of $63.73 and a fifty-two week high of $103.46. The firm has a market cap of $5.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.13, a P/E/G ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.27.

Cabot Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, June 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 31st will be issued a dividend of $0.43 per share. This is a boost from Cabot’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, May 31st. Cabot’s dividend payout ratio is currently 20.78%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Jeff Ji Zhu sold 55,233 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.91, for a total transaction of $4,413,669.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 97,201 shares in the company, valued at $7,767,331.91. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 3.07% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on CBT. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Cabot from $100.00 to $103.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut shares of Cabot from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $88.00 to $95.00 in a report on Thursday, April 18th. StockNews.com raised shares of Cabot from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Cabot from $104.00 to $109.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $93.67.

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.