Earnest Partners LLC Increases Stock Holdings in Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB)

Earnest Partners LLC boosted its position in shares of Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB) by 11.9% in the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,198,730 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock after acquiring an additional 127,615 shares during the quarter. Earnest Partners LLC owned 1.02% of Albemarle worth $114,503,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of ALB. Assetmark Inc. boosted its holdings in Albemarle by 77.2% during the 4th quarter. Assetmark Inc. now owns 257 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $37,000 after acquiring an additional 112 shares during the period. Commerce Bank boosted its stake in shares of Albemarle by 5.2% in the 4th quarter. Commerce Bank now owns 10,667 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $1,541,000 after buying an additional 525 shares during the period. SageView Advisory Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Albemarle by 10.4% in the 4th quarter. SageView Advisory Group LLC now owns 1,714 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $248,000 after buying an additional 162 shares during the period. Hsbc Holdings PLC boosted its stake in shares of Albemarle by 26.0% in the 4th quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 158,926 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $22,946,000 after buying an additional 32,748 shares during the period. Finally, Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC boosted its stake in shares of Albemarle by 447.9% in the 4th quarter. Steward Partners Investment Advisory LLC now owns 15,324 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $2,214,000 after buying an additional 12,527 shares during the period. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on ALB. Citigroup decreased their price objective on Albemarle from $137.00 to $100.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, July 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price objective on Albemarle from $115.00 to $78.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 19th. HSBC cut Albemarle from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $95.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, July 17th. Baird R W cut Albemarle from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Finally, Evercore ISI cut their target price on Albemarle from $190.00 to $170.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, August 28th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have assigned a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Albemarle has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $117.10.

Albemarle Trading Down 4.3 %

ALB opened at $86.58 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $10.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.48, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.98 and a beta of 1.54. Albemarle Co. has a 52 week low of $71.97 and a 52 week high of $177.52. The business’s 50 day moving average is $86.46 and its two-hundred day moving average is $106.06. 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 earnings results on Wednesday, July 31st. The specialty chemicals company reported $0.04 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.53 by ($0.49). The company had revenue of $1.43 billion during 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%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 39.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $7.33 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Albemarle Co. will post 0.69 EPS for the current year.

Albemarle Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, October 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be issued a $0.405 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th. This represents a $1.62 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.87%. This is a positive change from Albemarle’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. Albemarle’s payout ratio is presently 58.91%.

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.