Huntsman Co. (NYSE:HUN – Get Free Report) saw a significant growth in short interest during the month of March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,320,000 shares, a growth of 17.2% from the March 15th total of 4,540,000 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 2,050,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.6 days. Currently, 3.3% of the company’s stock are short sold.
Institutional Inflows and Outflows
Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Pathstone Family Office LLC increased its position in Huntsman by 3.4% during the 4th quarter. Pathstone Family Office LLC now owns 12,569 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $156,000 after purchasing an additional 418 shares during the period. Creative Planning boosted its holdings in shares of Huntsman by 1.1% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 41,382 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,173,000 after buying an additional 444 shares in the last quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Huntsman by 93.0% during the 4th quarter. Quadrant Capital Group LLC now owns 1,081 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 521 shares in the last quarter. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Huntsman by 5.0% during the 3rd quarter. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC now owns 11,628 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $284,000 after buying an additional 557 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Yousif Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Huntsman by 6.4% during the 1st quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 9,531 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $358,000 after buying an additional 575 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 84.81% of the company’s stock.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades
A number of brokerages recently weighed in on HUN. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their target price on shares of Huntsman from $30.00 to $29.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 24th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Huntsman from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $25.00 to $32.00 in a report on Friday, February 23rd. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on shares of Huntsman from $25.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on shares of Huntsman from $20.00 to $24.00 and gave the company a “sector perform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 23rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Huntsman presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $26.55.
Huntsman Price Performance
NYSE HUN traded down $0.49 during trading on Friday, hitting $24.09. 1,286,592 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,983,562. The company has a current ratio of 1.97, a quick ratio of 1.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.48. The company has a market cap of $4.17 billion, a PE ratio of 45.45 and a beta of 1.12. Huntsman has a fifty-two week low of $22.14 and a fifty-two week high of $29.90. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $25.22 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $24.63.
Huntsman (NYSE:HUN – Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, February 22nd. The basic materials company reported ($0.21) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.14) by ($0.07). Huntsman had a return on equity of 1.92% and a net margin of 1.65%. The business had revenue of $1.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.33 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.04 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down 15.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Huntsman will post 0.48 EPS for the current year.
Huntsman Increases Dividend
The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 29th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 15th were paid a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 14th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.15%. This is an increase from Huntsman’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.24. Huntsman’s dividend payout ratio is currently 188.68%.
Huntsman Company Profile
Huntsman Corporation manufactures and sells diversified organic chemical products worldwide. The company operates in three segments: Polyurethanes, Performance Products, and Advanced Materials. The Polyurethanes segment offers polyurethane chemicals, including methyl diphenyl diisocyanate, polyether and polyester polyols, and thermoplastic polyurethane; and aniline, benzene, nitrobenzene and other co-products.