Cabot Co. (CBT) To Go Ex-Dividend on February 28th

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) announced a quarterly dividend on Friday, January 10th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, February 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.43 per share by the specialty chemicals company on Friday, March 14th. This represents a $1.72 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.98%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 28th.

Cabot has raised its dividend by an average of 6.0% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Cabot has a dividend payout ratio of 20.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Cabot to earn $8.37 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 20.5%.

Cabot Trading Up 2.5 %

NYSE CBT opened at $87.01 on Wednesday. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $88.87 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $100.92. The company has a market capitalization of $4.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.74 and a beta of 1.19. Cabot has a 12 month low of $82.27 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.

Cabot (NYSE:CBT) last released its earnings results on Monday, February 3rd. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.76 EPS 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%. As a group, research analysts predict that Cabot will post 7.57 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cabot declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program 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 programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CBT has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Mizuho cut their price objective on shares of Cabot from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cabot from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective 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 investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $97.00.

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.