Ashland Stock Price, News & Analysis (NYSE:ASH)

6 Wall Street analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Ashland in the last twelve months. There are currently 1 sell rating, 2 hold ratings and 3 buy ratings for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street analysts is that investors should "hold" ASH shares. A hold rating indicates that analysts believe investors should maintain any existing positions they have in ASH, but not buy additional shares or sell existing shares.
View ASH analyst ratings or view top-rated stocks.

6 brokerages have issued 12-month price targets for Ashland's stock. Their ASH share price targets range from $75.00 to $106.00. On average, they predict the company's share price to reach $93.14 in the next year. This suggests a possible upside of 11.6% from the stock's current price.
View analysts price targets for ASH or view top-rated stocks among Wall Street analysts.

Ashland's stock was trading at $107.53 at the beginning of the year. Since then, ASH stock has decreased by 22.4% and is now trading at $83.47.
View the best growth stocks for 2023 here.

Ashland saw a increase in short interest in November. As of November 15th, there was short interest totaling 1,060,000 shares, an increase of 13.4% from the October 31st total of 935,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 472,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.2 days. Currently, 2.1% of the company's shares are short sold.
View Ashland's Short Interest.

The company is scheduled to release its next quarterly earnings announcement on Tuesday, January 30th 2024.
View our ASH earnings forecast.

Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) issued its earnings results on Thursday, November, 9th. The basic materials company reported $0.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.47 by $0.06. The basic materials company earned $518 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $528.57 million. Ashland had a net margin of 8.07% and a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 6.78%. The firm's quarterly revenue was down 17.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.46 earnings per share.

Ashland announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, November 13th. Shareholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.385 per share on Friday, December 15th. This represents a $1.54 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.84%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, November 30th.
Read our dividend analysis for ASH.

Ashland (NYSE:ASH) pays an annual dividend of $1.54 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 1.87%. The company has been increasing its dividend for 14 consecutive years, indicating the company has a strong committment to maintain and grow its dividend. The dividend payout ratio is 47.09%. This payout ratio is at a healthy, sustainable level, below 75%. Based on earnings estimates, ASH will have a dividend payout ratio of 26.55% next year. This indicates that the company will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.
Read our dividend analysis for ASH.

ETFs with the largest weight of Ashland (NYSE:ASH) stock in their portfolio include First Trust Materials AlphaDEX Fund (FXZ), Invesco S&P MidCap Low Volatility ETF (XMLV), First Trust Horizon Managed Volatility Small/Mid ETF (HSMV) and iShares U.S. Basic Materials ETF (IYM).Fidelity MSCI Materials Index ETF (FMAT).

Ashland announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Wednesday, June 28th 2023, which permits the company to repurchase $1,000,000,000.00 in shares, according to EventVestor. This repurchase authorization permits the company to reacquire up to 21.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company's management believes its shares are undervalued.

Ashland issued an update on its FY 2023 earnings guidance on Wednesday, November, 1st. The company provided earnings per share (EPS) guidance of for the period. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.19 billion-$2.19 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.20 billion.

78 employees have rated Ashland Chief Executive Officer William A. Wulfsohn on Glassdoor.com. William A. Wulfsohn has an approval rating of 48% among the company's employees. This puts William A. Wulfsohn in the bottom 25% of approval ratings compared to other CEOs of publicly-traded companies.

Based on aggregate information from My MarketBeat watchlists, some companies that other Ashland investors own include Intel (INTC), Pfizer (PFE), AbbVie (ABBV), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Eastman Chemical (EMN), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), Boeing (BA), Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), Cardinal Health (CAH) and Procter & Gamble (PG).

Ashland's stock is owned by a variety of retail and institutional investors. Top institutional shareholders include Eminence Capital LP (6.86%), Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA (4.41%), Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. (3.81%), Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC (2.76%), Clearbridge Investments LLC (2.74%) and Ceredex Value Advisors LLC (1.30%). Insiders that own company stock include Eric N Boni and J Kevin Willis.
View institutional ownership trends.

Shares of ASH stock can be purchased through any online brokerage account. Popular online brokerages with access to the U.S. stock market include WeBull, Vanguard Brokerage Services, TD Ameritrade, E*TRADE, Robinhood, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab.
Compare Top Brokerages Here.