Vontobel Holding Ltd. Purchases New Position in Olin Co. (NYSE:OLN)

Vontobel Holding Ltd. purchased a new position in Olin Co. (NYSE:OLN - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 9,701 shares of the specialty chemicals company's stock, valued at approximately $328,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Blue Trust Inc. increased its stake in Olin by 34.3% in the 4th quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,887 shares of the specialty chemicals company's stock worth $98,000 after purchasing an additional 738 shares in the last quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. increased its stake in Olin by 55.5% in the 4th quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 143,062 shares of the specialty chemicals company's stock worth $4,835,000 after purchasing an additional 51,051 shares in the last quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC purchased a new position in Olin in the 3rd quarter worth about $916,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in Olin by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,295,699 shares of the specialty chemicals company's stock worth $62,168,000 after acquiring an additional 37,043 shares during the period. Finally, KBC Group NV boosted its position in Olin by 82.9% during the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 5,461 shares of the specialty chemicals company's stock worth $185,000 after acquiring an additional 2,476 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 88.67% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on OLN. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on Olin from $40.00 to $31.00 and set an "equal weight" rating for the company in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on Olin from $44.00 to $34.00 and set a "market perform" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. UBS Group decreased their price objective on Olin from $35.00 to $34.00 and set a "neutral" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Citigroup reduced their price target on Olin from $48.00 to $45.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on Olin from $31.00 to $28.00 and set an "underweight" rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $40.44.

Olin Stock Performance

Shares of OLN stock traded down $0.67 during trading on Friday, reaching $26.89. The company had a trading volume of 1,374,183 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,793,941. The firm's 50 day simple moving average is $31.71 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $39.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32, a current ratio of 1.27 and a quick ratio of 0.77. Olin Co. has a one year low of $26.48 and a one year high of $60.60. The company has a market capitalization of $3.14 billion, a PE ratio of 29.88 and a beta of 1.45.

Olin (NYSE:OLN - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The specialty chemicals company reported $0.09 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.01) by $0.10. Olin had a return on equity of 5.10% and a net margin of 1.66%. Sell-side analysts forecast that Olin Co. will post 1.38 earnings per share for the current year.

Olin Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, March 14th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 6th will be given a $0.20 dividend. This represents a $0.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.97%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 6th. Olin's dividend payout ratio is currently 88.89%.

Olin announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Thursday, December 12th that permits the company to buyback $2.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the specialty chemicals company to purchase up to 45% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company's management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Olin news, CEO Kenneth Todd Lane purchased 7,250 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 4th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $28.06 per share, with a total value of $203,435.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 7,250 shares in the company, valued at approximately $203,435. This represents a ∞ increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Company insiders own 1.60% of the company's stock.

Olin Profile

Olin Corporation manufactures and distributes chemical products in the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Canada. It operates through three segments: Chlor Alkali Products and Vinyls; Epoxy; and Winchester. The Chlor Alkali Products and Vinyls segment offers chlorine and caustic soda, ethylene dichloride and vinyl chloride monomers, methyl chloride, methylene chloride, chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, perchloroethylene, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen, bleach products, potassium hydroxide, and chlorinated organics intermediates and solvents.