Analysts Set Quaker Houghton (NYSE:KWR) PT at $152.33

Quaker Houghton (NYSE:KWR) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the six ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, one has issued a hold recommendation and three have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price target among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $152.3333.

KWR has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Quaker Houghton in a research note on Wednesday, August 13th. Zacks Research lowered shares of Quaker Houghton from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Quaker Houghton from $149.00 to $171.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, November 3rd. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d)” rating on shares of Quaker Houghton in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Quaker Houghton by 3.0% during the 1st quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 75,954 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $9,389,000 after purchasing an additional 2,193 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in Quaker Houghton by 390.5% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 363 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock worth $45,000 after buying an additional 289 shares during the period. Cerity Partners LLC increased its position in Quaker Houghton by 8.1% during the first quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 12,876 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $1,592,000 after acquiring an additional 970 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp raised its stake in shares of Quaker Houghton by 2.5% in the first quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 126,795 shares of the specialty chemicals company’s stock valued at $15,673,000 after acquiring an additional 3,139 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP bought a new stake in shares of Quaker Houghton in the 1st quarter worth about $23,190,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 77.46% of the company’s stock.

Quaker Houghton Stock Down 3.8%

Shares of KWR stock opened at $137.19 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 2.56 and a quick ratio of 1.87. Quaker Houghton has a one year low of $95.91 and a one year high of $173.81. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $134.85 and its 200-day moving average price is $124.79. The company has a market capitalization of $2.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -319.04, a PEG ratio of 1.67 and a beta of 1.47.

Quaker Houghton (NYSE:KWR) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The specialty chemicals company reported $2.08 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.94 by $0.14. The company had revenue of $493.84 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $475.06 million. Quaker Houghton had a negative net margin of 0.39% and a positive return on equity of 8.35%. Quaker Houghton’s quarterly revenue was up 6.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.89 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Quaker Houghton will post 7.75 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Quaker Houghton Company Profile

Quaker Chemical Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, develops, produces, and markets various formulated specialty chemical products for a range of heavy industrial and manufacturing applications in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It offers metal removal fluids, cleaning fluids, corrosion inhibitors, metal drawing and forming fluids, die-cast mold releases, heat treatment and quenchants, metal forging fluids, hydraulic fluids, specialty greases, offshore sub-sea energy control fluids, rolling lubricants, rod and wire drawing fluids, and surface treatment chemicals.