Stock Alert: Albemarle Shares Advance 12%

(RTTNews) - Shares of Specialty chemicals company Albemarle Corporation (ALB) climbed 9.64 or 11.93% on Tuesday before closing at $90.43, close to its 52-week high of $93.14. Trading volume yesterday was nearly three-times up at 4.64 million compared with the average volume of 1.66 million.

ALB had been on a downtrend for a long time since its peak in November 2017, and it touched 52-week low of $58.63 in August 2019. Since then the stock showed an uptrend and gained nearly 50% during the last 5 months.

On Monday the company was added to the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, which measures the performance of S&P 500 companies that have increased dividends every year for the last 25 consecutive years. The company has been consistently increasing its annualized dividend from $0.10 in 1994 to $1.47 in 2019, a 22% growth rate.

Last month Albemarle was included in the 2020 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index (GEI). The GEI tracks the financial performance of public companies committed to supporting gender equality through policy development, representation, and transparency.

In November last year, Albemarle reported third-quarter sales of $879.7 million, up from $777.7 million in the corresponding quarter last year. Net income also increased to $155.1 million or $1.53 per share from $129.7 million or $1.31 per share in the year-ago period. Adjusted EPS of $1.53 missed the estimates by 3 cents.

For the full-year, Albemarle expects sales to be in the range of $3.6 billion- $3.7 billion and adjusted EPS between $6.00 and $6.20. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters see earnings of $6.07 on revenue of $3.59 billion for the period.

Fourth-quarter earnings results are expected to be reported on February 19.