Albemarle Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:ALB)

Albemarle Corporation (NYSE:ALB) saw unusually large options trading activity on Thursday. Stock traders purchased 96,143 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 382% compared to the average daily volume of 19,967 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on ALB shares. Truist Financial upped their price target on shares of Albemarle from $87.00 to $91.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, November 7th. Royal Bank Of Canada upped their target price on shares of Albemarle from $117.00 to $120.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, November 10th. UBS Group upgraded Albemarle from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $107.00 to $185.00 in a research note on Friday, December 5th. Bank of America restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $100.00 price objective (up from $95.00) on shares of Albemarle in a research report on Tuesday, October 14th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on Albemarle from $124.00 to $152.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have given a Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Hold rating and three have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $108.63.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Albemarle

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Empower Advisory Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Albemarle by 11.4% in the 2nd quarter. Empower Advisory Group LLC now owns 866,575 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $54,308,000 after purchasing an additional 88,457 shares during the period. AXQ Capital LP bought a new stake in Albemarle in the second quarter worth $267,000. Bard Financial Services Inc. bought a new stake in Albemarle in the second quarter worth $1,850,000. Leibman Financial Services Inc. boosted its stake in Albemarle by 14.6% during the second quarter. Leibman Financial Services Inc. now owns 48,871 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $3,063,000 after buying an additional 6,237 shares during the period. Finally, Teza Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Albemarle during the first quarter valued at $764,000. Institutional investors own 92.87% of the company’s stock.

Albemarle Price Performance

Shares of ALB traded up $1.27 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $134.48. 1,388,727 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,599,733. The stock has a market cap of $15.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -84.58 and a beta of 1.43. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $106.75 and a 200-day moving average of $84.41. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.40, a quick ratio of 1.51 and a current ratio of 2.27. Albemarle has a 52 week low of $49.43 and a 52 week high of $135.13.

Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, November 5th. The specialty chemicals company reported ($0.19) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.92) by $0.73. Albemarle had a positive return on equity of 0.10% and a negative net margin of 0.43%.The company had revenue of $1.31 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.27 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($1.55) earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts forecast that Albemarle will post -0.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Albemarle Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, January 2nd. Investors of record on Friday, December 12th will be issued a $0.405 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 12th. This represents a $1.62 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.2%. Albemarle’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is -101.89%.

Albemarle Company Profile

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.