Westlake Corporation (NYSE:WLK) Given Average Recommendation of “Hold” by Analysts

Westlake Corporation (NYSE:WLK) has earned an average recommendation of “Hold” from the fifteen research firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $93.7857.

A number of research firms have recently commented on WLK. Royal Bank Of Canada reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $95.00 target price (up from $89.00) on shares of Westlake in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. Bank of America dropped their price objective on Westlake from $104.00 to $85.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, June 30th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d)” rating on shares of Westlake in a research report on Friday, July 17th. Mizuho reduced their target price on Westlake from $110.00 to $88.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 1st. Finally, KeyCorp started coverage on Westlake in a research report on Friday, September 11th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $92.00 target price for the company.

Insider Transactions at Westlake

In other Westlake news, Chairman Albert Chao sold 38,873 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $80.28, for a total value of $3,120,724.44. Following the transaction, the chairman directly owned 642,880 shares in the company, valued at $51,610,406.40. This represents a 5.70% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. 1.40% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Westlake

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of WLK. Nykredit A S bought a new position in shares of Westlake during the 2nd quarter worth $69,000. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. increased its holdings in shares of Westlake by 219.4% in the 4th quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 955 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $71,000 after acquiring an additional 656 shares during the period. Transamerica Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Westlake in the 2nd quarter valued at $80,000. IFP Advisors Inc raised its position in shares of Westlake by 58,450.0% in the 2nd quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 1,171 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $85,000 after acquiring an additional 1,169 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Parallel Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Westlake by 133.8% in the 1st quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 830 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $97,000 after acquiring an additional 475 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 28.40% of the company’s stock.

Westlake Trading Down 0.6%

Shares of WLK opened at $68.42 on Friday. Westlake has a twelve month low of $56.33 and a twelve month high of $124.23. The company has a market cap of $8.74 billion, a P/E ratio of -7.14 and a beta of 0.63. The company has a current ratio of 2.45, a quick ratio of 1.70 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $74.74 and its 200-day simple moving average is $89.27.

Westlake (NYSE:WLK) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The specialty chemicals company reported $2.01 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.83 by $0.18. Westlake had a negative net margin of 10.94% and a positive return on equity of 0.93%. The firm had revenue of $3.27 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.24 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned ($1.11) EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 10.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Westlake will post 3.33 EPS for the current year.

Westlake Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, September 10th. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 25th were paid a $0.533 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 25th. This represents a $2.13 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.1%. This is a boost from Westlake’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.53. Westlake’s payout ratio is -22.23%.

Westlake Company Profile

Westlake Corporation is a global manufacturer of performance and essential materials headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company produces chemicals, polymers and building products used in construction, infrastructure, packaging, healthcare, consumer goods and other industrial applications.

Its Performance and Essential Materials businesses manufacture products such as chlor-alkali chemicals, vinyl chloride monomer, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polyethylene, epoxy resins and related specialty materials.