Albemarle Corporation ALB
Weak EV & Mobility sector · Albemarle — top lithium producer; earnings ride the volatile lithium price cycle.
🗓 Reports earnings in 74 days (2026-11-04) — calendar context, not a prediction.
Albemarle Corporation (ALB) is an established EV & Mobility company, graded Weak on FrontierLab's evidence-based quality rubric (data as of 2026-08-21). Revenue grew 18.3% year-over-year at a 23.9% gross margin. Gross-profits-to-assets is 0.09; Rule of 40 is 30.2. Net share issuance 15.8% YoY (heavy issuance). 2 risk flags are noted below. Analyst mix: 16 buy / 10 hold / 0 sell.
These sentences are generated from the day's data by deterministic templates.
Key quality signals
| Revenue growth (YoY) | 18.3% |
|---|---|
| Gross margin | 23.9% |
| Gross profits / assets | 0.09 |
| Rule of 40 | 30.2 |
| Net margin | 11.9% |
| Cash runway (months) | — |
| PEG | — |
| Price / sales | 2.7 |
Quality checklist
Each line is one quality test behind the grade — ✓ passed · ~ borderline · ✗ failed. Hover a metric in the tables below for what it means.
- ~ Revenue growth — 18.3% (pass ≥ 20%)
- ✗ Gross profits / assets — 0.09 (pass ≥ 0.33)
- · Rule of 40 — 30.2 (context — graded for software only)
- ~ Gross margin — 23.9% (pass ≥ 25% · EV & Mobility)
- ✓ Cash generation
- ✗ Share dilution — 15.8%
- ~ Competitive moat — Narrow
- ✓ Market size (TAM) — Large
Grade history
Graded Weak since 2026-06-10 — no grade changes recorded yet.
How have Weak-graded names performed?
The forward returns of all Weak-graded names since each grade was recorded — the bucket this name currently sits in, not a forecast of this individual stock.
| Window | Forward record vs the S&P | Median |
|---|---|---|
| ~1 month | 60% of Weak-graded names beat the S&P over 21 sessions (95% CI 39–78%, N=20). | Median excess vs the S&P was +0.6%. |
| ~3 months | building — 13 more sessions needed | |
| ~6 months | building — 76 more sessions needed | |
How have this name's flags scored?
| Flag | N | Mean excess vs S&P |
|---|---|---|
| Thin gross margin — keeps little of each sales dollar (judge it against its industry). | 20 | +2.1% |
| Heavy dilution (~16%/yr) — top-decile share issuers have historically underperformed. | sample still too small to report (need ≥ 8) | |
These per-flag figures are observational — a flag firing is not a randomized assignment, so any edge can reflect what kind of names trip a flag, not the flag itself. Descriptive, not causal.
Scope: these are forward returns vs the S&P among names still covered at each horizon's end, within the curated universe — not a survivorship-clean whole-market backtest. Names later dropped from coverage are counted as attrition (not hidden), and single-session moves beyond ±300% are treated as split/data artifacts and excluded. How this is measured → · Full track record →
How it compares
Coarse same-sector, same-stage context — not a percentile or rank. GP/A is graded on its absolute level, not position.
Fundamentals
| Market cap | $15.83B |
|---|---|
| Stage | Established |
| Share issuance (YoY) | 15.8% · heavy issuance |
| Moat | Narrow |
| TAM | LARGE |
| P/E (trailing) | — |
| EPS (trailing) | $-0.03 |
| Burn multiple | — |
| Gross-margin trend (pts) | 16.2 |
| Cash / assets | 0.1 |
| Accruals (%) | -9.5% |
| Net debt / EBITDA | 0.3 |
| Statements as of | Q2 FY2026 · filed 2026-08-05 |
Momentum context — describes the past, not a signal
Low reached Sep 9, 2025 · high reached Apr 16, 2026 — by daily close.
| Price | $134.19 (as of 2026-08-20) |
|---|---|
| Last session move | — |
| % off 52-wk high | -39.3% |
| RSI (14) | 58 |
| Relative volume | 0.7× |
Risk flags
Positive signals
Analyst mix
| Strong buy | 6 |
|---|---|
| Buy | 10 |
| Hold | 10 |
| Sell | 0 |
| Strong sell | 0 |
▼ Analyst view softening — net -1 buy rating, coverage 28→26 analysts over ~4 weeks (per aggregated analyst ratings)
Ratings are context, not a price target. "Momentum" = how the mix changed over recent weeks, not a forecast.
From the headlines
Cost cuts drive attractive valuation; analyst covers short position.
AI take — daily, AI-generated
AI leans mixed
Albemarle shows solid growth and reasonable margins, but asset efficiency is weak and dilution is rising, suggesting management is burning shareholder value; 100% bullish sentiment on a 'weak' grade is a red flag.
Generated by an AI model from the day's news — an opinion for context only. Not financial advice, not a recommendation, and not a price target.
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Data as of 2026-08-21 08:12 (end-of-day). How grades are computed →