Short Interest in Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) Increases By 9.6%

Cabot Co. (NYSE:CBT) saw a significant increase in short interest in the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 2,290,000 shares, an increase of 9.6% from the January 15th total of 2,090,000 shares. Approximately 4.3% of the shares of the company are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 404,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 5.7 days.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cabot

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. R Squared Ltd acquired a new position in Cabot during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Farther Finance Advisors LLC boosted its position in Cabot by 197.9% during the third quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 417 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $47,000 after acquiring an additional 277 shares during the last quarter. CWM LLC boosted its position in Cabot by 35.6% during the third quarter. CWM LLC now owns 564 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $63,000 after acquiring an additional 148 shares during the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. boosted its position in Cabot by 22.0% during the third quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 650 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $73,000 after acquiring an additional 117 shares during the last quarter. Finally, EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in Cabot by 37.2% during the fourth quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 808 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $74,000 after acquiring an additional 219 shares during the last quarter. 93.18% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CBT has been the topic of several analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered shares of Cabot from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of Cabot from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $105.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Mizuho dropped their price target on shares of Cabot from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $102.00.

Cabot Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CBT traded up $0.68 during trading on Friday, hitting $86.53. The company had a trading volume of 433,517 shares, compared to its average volume of 382,872. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $91.30 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $101.33. Cabot has a fifty-two week low of $80.21 and a fifty-two week high of $117.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 11.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.19. The company has a quick ratio of 1.36, a current ratio of 2.00 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.72.

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

Cabot Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 14th. Investors of record on Friday, February 28th will be given a dividend of $0.43 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 28th. This represents a $1.72 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.99%. Cabot’s payout ratio is presently 22.84%.

Cabot declared that its board has authorized a share repurchase program on Tuesday, December 3rd that allows the company to buyback 10,000,000 outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the specialty chemicals company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

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.