Topic: How To Invest

Q: Hi: What is your opinion of Albemarle (ALB)? Thanks

Article Excerpt

A: Albemarle Corp., $116.76, symbol ALB on New York (Shares outstanding: 110.8 million; Market cap: $12.9 billion; www.albemarle.com), is a global specialty chemicals company with three main businesses: Lithium and Advanced Materials, Bromine Specialties, and Refining Solutions. The end markets it serves include petroleum refining, consumer electronics, energy storage, construction, automotive, lubricants, pharmaceuticals, crop protection, food safety and custom chemistry services. The company’s main growth area is its lithium business. It develops and manufactures a broad range of basic lithium compounds, including lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, lithium chloride, and value-added lithium specialties and reagents. Those include butyllithium and lithium aluminum hydride. This operation (around 43% of overall sales), should prosper with increasing lithium demand. Lithium is needed by the makers of electric car batteries, electric grid and power storage entities, and the makers of smartphones, portable electronic devices, and lubricants. Most of today’s lithium comes from brine solutions drawn from salt lakes such as the Chabyer in Tibet and the Salar de Atacama…