Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) Short Interest Update

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) was the target of a large growth in short interest in February. As of February 28th, there was short interest totalling 3,470,000 shares, a growth of 26.6% from the February 13th total of 2,740,000 shares. Currently, 6.5% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 425,400 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 8.2 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CBT has been the subject of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered Cabot from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Mizuho cut their price objective on 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. lowered their target price on shares of Cabot from $105.00 to $85.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, February 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $97.00.

Cabot Price Performance

CBT stock traded up $0.74 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $84.05. 314,055 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 345,780. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $86.73 and a 200 day moving average price of $99.29. Cabot has a 12 month low of $79.57 and a 12 month high of $117.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72, a current ratio of 2.00 and a quick ratio of 1.29. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.16, a PEG ratio of 0.74 and a beta of 1.21.

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

Cabot announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 3rd that allows the company to buyback 10,000,000 shares. This buyback authorization allows the specialty chemicals company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Cabot Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 14th. Investors of record on Friday, February 28th were given a $0.43 dividend. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.05%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 28th. Cabot’s payout ratio is presently 22.84%.

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.