Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB) Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.41

Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB) announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, October 28th, RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 13th will be given a dividend of 0.405 per share by the specialty chemicals company on Thursday, January 2nd. This represents a $1.62 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.65%.

Albemarle has raised its dividend payment by an average of 1.3% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 30 years. Albemarle has a payout ratio of 77.1% meaning its dividend is currently covered by earnings, but may not be in the future if the company’s earnings decline. Analysts expect Albemarle to earn $3.05 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.62 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 53.1%.

Albemarle Trading Up 5.0 %

Shares of Albemarle stock traded up $4.63 during trading hours on Monday, hitting $98.14. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,382,359 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,999,354. Albemarle has a 1-year low of $71.97 and a 1-year high of $153.54. The business has a fifty day moving average of $91.35 and a 200 day moving average of $101.59. The company has a market capitalization of $11.53 billion, a PE ratio of 34.27, a P/E/G ratio of 13.81 and a beta of 1.54. The company has a quick ratio of 1.75, a current ratio of 2.67 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38.

Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The specialty chemicals company reported $0.04 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.53 by ($0.49). The firm had revenue of $1.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.34 billion. Albemarle had a negative net margin of 6.72% and a positive return on equity of 6.38%. Albemarle’s revenue for the quarter was down 39.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $7.33 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Albemarle will post 0.46 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have commented on ALB shares. Oppenheimer reduced their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $188.00 to $178.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, July 9th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $105.00 to $80.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 16th. Hsbc Global Res upgraded shares of Albemarle to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Albemarle from $128.00 to $111.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Piper Sandler reduced their price target on shares of Albemarle from $95.00 to $90.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 8th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have given a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $117.30.

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.