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

6 Wall Street equities research analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Ashland in the last year. There are currently 1 sell rating, 2 hold ratings and 3 buy ratings for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street equities research 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.
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6 brokerages have issued 1-year price targets for Ashland's stock. Their ASH share price targets range from $75.00 to $106.00. On average, they expect the company's share price to reach $93.14 in the next year. This suggests a possible upside of 18.8% from the stock's current price.
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Ashland's stock was trading at $107.53 on January 1st, 2023. Since then, ASH shares have decreased by 27.1% and is now trading at $78.38.
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Ashland saw a increase in short interest during the month of October. As of October 31st, there was short interest totaling 935,000 shares, an increase of 17.7% from the October 15th total of 794,500 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 454,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.1 days. Approximately 1.8% of the shares of the stock 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) released its earnings results on Thursday, November, 9th. The basic materials company reported $0.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.47 by $0.06. The basic materials company had revenue of $518 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $528.57 million. Ashland had a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 6.78% and a net margin of 8.07%. The firm's quarterly revenue was down 17.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.46 earnings per share.

Ashland announced a quarterly dividend on Monday, November 13th. Stockholders of record on Friday, December 1st will be given a dividend of $0.385 per share on Friday, December 15th. This represents a $1.54 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.96%. 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 1.94%. 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 buyback $1,000,000,000.00 in shares, according to EventVestor. This buyback authorization permits the company to reacquire up to 21.2% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically a sign that the company's leadership believes its stock is 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 many different institutional and retail 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, J Kevin Willis and Peter Ganz.
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.
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