Ashland (ASH) Stock Forecast, Price & News

6 Wall Street 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 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 analysts have issued 12 month price objectives for Ashland's shares. Their ASH share price forecasts range from $87.00 to $142.00. On average, they anticipate the company's share price to reach $109.75 in the next year. This suggests a possible upside of 23.1% 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 17.1% and is now trading at $89.17.
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Ashland saw a increase in short interest in the month of July. As of July 31st, there was short interest totaling 892,900 shares, an increase of 7.1% from the July 15th total of 833,500 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 543,200 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 1.6 days. Approximately 1.8% 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 Monday, November 6th 2023.
View our ASH earnings forecast.

Ashland Inc. (NYSE:ASH) posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July, 26th. The basic materials company reported $1.23 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $1.35 by $0.12. The basic materials company earned $546 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $566.64 million. Ashland had a net margin of 10.32% and a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 8.54%. Ashland's quarterly revenue was down 15.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.89 EPS.

Ashland announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, May 11th. Investors of record on Thursday, June 1st will be paid a dividend of $0.385 per share on Thursday, June 15th. This represents a $1.54 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.73%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, May 31st. This is an increase from the stock's previous quarterly dividend of $0.34.
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 (NYSE:ASH) pays an annual dividend of $1.54 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 1.73%. The company has been increasing its dividend for 3 consecutive year(s), indicating that it does not yet have a strong track record of dividend growth. The dividend payout ratio is 35.16%. This payout ratio is at a healthy, sustainable level, below 75%. Based on earnings estimates, ASH will have a dividend payout ratio of 27.50% next year. This indicates that the company will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.
Read our dividend analysis for ASH.

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

Ashland issued an update on its third quarter 2023 earnings guidance on Thursday, June, 29th. The company provided EPS guidance of for the period. The company issued revenue guidance of $545.00 million-$550.00 million, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $625.61 million.

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 trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol "ASH."

Ashland's stock is owned by a variety of institutional and retail investors. Top institutional shareholders include BlackRock Inc. (9.15%), Dimensional Fund Advisors LP (4.76%), Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. (3.33%), Clearbridge Investments LLC (2.68%), Geode Capital Management LLC (1.41%) and Schroder Investment Management Group (1.30%). Insiders that own company stock include Eric N Boni, J Kevin Willis, Peter Ganz and Swaminathan Ashok Kalyana.
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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One share of ASH stock can currently be purchased for approximately $89.17.

Ashland (NYSE:ASH) has a market capitalization of $4.57 billion and generates $2.39 billion in revenue each year. The basic materials company earns $927 million in net income (profit) each year or $4.38 on an earnings per share basis.

The company employs 3,900 workers across the globe.

Ashland's mailing address is 8145 Blazer Drive, Wilmington DE, 19808. The official website for the company is www.ashland.com. The basic materials company can be reached via phone at (302) 995-3000, via email at investor_relations@ashland.com, or via fax at 859-815-5188.