Stock Alert: Are Fundamentals Driving Cabot Oil & Gas Stock Up?

(RTTNews) - Shares of Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (COG), that hit 52-week low early this month, closed yesterday's trading at $16.89, up 4.91%.

Recent Highlights: In October, the company reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings, on an adjusted basis, at $0.29. Analysts were expecting $0.26 per share.

Net income, however, decreased to $90.4 million or $0.22 per share versus $122.3 million or $0.28 per share in the corresponding quarter last year. Revenue also dropped to $429.11 million from $545.17 million.

Free cash flow in the third quarter rose to 72.43 million from $28.57 million during the same period last year.

Despite lower natural gas prices, the company continued to deliver strong ROCE at 25.2% for the trailing 12 months ended September 30, up from 10.8% during the same period a year ago.

In October, the company had announced an 11% increase in the dividend, fifth dividend increase since May 2017.

Subsequent to the third quarter earnings release, Cabot repurchased an additional 5 million shares at $17.84 per share. Since resuming the share buyback in the second quarter of 2017, Cabot has so far brought its shares outstanding down by over 13 percent to 402.9 million shares.