Can Dow Chemical Continue Its Comeback?

Dow attributed the year-over-year revenue decline to currency fluctuations and lower oil prices. Sequentially, revenues rose 4% overall, including a 14% jump in China and a 6% increase in the United States.

The company said that cash flow from operations totaled $2.7 billion for the year to date. Dow returned $1.5 billion to stockholders in dividends and stock buybacks in the second quarter. The company’s dividend yield is 3.3%.

Here is what Dow’s CEO said:

Through disciplined commercial and operational excellence, coupled with underlying strength in demand for Dow products, we once again generated significant earnings growth, margin expansion and strong free cash flow in the quarter — in the midst of record-level growth capital spending. … We continue to realize a strong competitive advantage from productivity, the benefits of our investments in propane flexibility and our backbone of physical and technology integration. We have also accelerated our customer-driven execution by combining the power of rapid test R&D with high-touch marketing to drive the development of innovative and in-demand material and ag-science solutions. We are accessing big data more quickly, which in turn, is improving the Company’s insight and information quality and allowing us to operate more effectively and meet ever-evolving customer needs. These actions continue to raise both our current earnings and the earnings potential of our enterprise.

Consensus estimates call for third-quarter EPS of $0.70 on revenues of $12.92 billion. For the full year, analysts are expecting $3.126 in EPS and $51.87 billion in revenues.

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Dow’s share price is down more than 7% over the past 12 months, although the company did raise its quarterly dividend to $0.42 for the first quarter of this year.

Dow’s shares were inactive in premarket trading Wednesday, having closed at $50.01 Tuesday, in a 52-week range of $41.45 to $54.97. Thomson Reuters had a consensus analyst price target of around $55.80 before the report.