Opes Wealth Management LLC Buys 140 Shares of Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB)

Opes Wealth Management LLC grew its stake in Albemarle Co. (NYSE:ALB) by 2.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 6,826 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock after acquiring an additional 140 shares during the period. Opes Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Albemarle were worth $986,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Albemarle by 124,405.7% during the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 104,510,053 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $22,664,050,000 after purchasing an additional 104,426,113 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC boosted its stake in shares of Albemarle by 142.3% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,043,861 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $177,499,000 after purchasing an additional 612,963 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its stake in shares of Albemarle by 45.6% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 1,378,866 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $299,021,000 after purchasing an additional 432,155 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Albemarle during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $75,802,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Albemarle by 15,046.5% during the fourth quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 347,763 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $502,450,000 after purchasing an additional 345,467 shares in the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on ALB shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft downgraded shares of Albemarle from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $155.00 to $135.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Vertical Research downgraded shares of Albemarle from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $145.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Friday, March 8th. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Albemarle from $125.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 10th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Albemarle from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lowered their target price on shares of Albemarle from $140.00 to $138.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, February 16th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have assigned a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Albemarle presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $175.05.

Albemarle Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ALB traded down $2.62 during trading on Thursday, hitting $111.77. The company had a trading volume of 2,207,692 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,324,419. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $123.12 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $129.82. Albemarle Co. has a fifty-two week low of $106.69 and a fifty-two week high of $247.44. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 1.62. The company has a quick ratio of 0.86, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37.

Albemarle (NYSE:ALB) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, February 15th. The specialty chemicals company reported $1.85 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.99 by $0.86. Albemarle had a net margin of 16.36% and a return on equity of 26.62%. The business had revenue of $2.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $8.62 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts expect that Albemarle Co. will post 3.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Albemarle Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, April 1st. Investors of record on Friday, March 15th were given a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.43%. Albemarle’s payout ratio is presently 11.99%.

Albemarle 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.