LyondellBasell Industries NV Stock Buy Recommendation Reiterated (LYB)

Editor's Note: TheStreet ratings do not represent the views of TheStreet's staff or its contributors. Ratings are established by computer based on metrics for performance (which includes growth, stock performance, efficiency and valuation) and risk (volatility and solvency). Companies with poor cash flow or high debt levels tend to earn lower ratings in our model.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- LyondellBasell Industries (NYSE:LYB) has been reiterated by TheStreet Ratings as a buy with a ratings score of B- . The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, attractive valuation levels and good cash flow from operations. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had somewhat weak growth in earnings per share.

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Highlights from the ratings report include:

• Compared to its closing price of one year ago, LYB's share price has jumped by 60.54%, exceeding the performance of the broader market during that same time frame. Regarding the stock's future course, although almost any stock can fall in a broad market decline, LYB should continue to move higher despite the fact that it has already enjoyed a very nice gain in the past year.
• The current debt-to-equity ratio, 0.35, is low and is below the industry average, implying that there has been successful management of debt levels. To add to this, LYB has a quick ratio of 1.58, which demonstrates the ability of the company to cover short-term liquidity needs.
• Net operating cash flow has increased to $2,047.00 million or 33.70% when compared to the same quarter last year. The firm also exceeded the industry average cash flow growth rate of 0.38%.
• LYB, with its decline in revenue, slightly underperformed the industry average of 2.2%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 9.9%. The declining revenue appears to have seeped down to the company's bottom line, decreasing earnings per share.

LyondellBasell Industries N.V. manufacturers and sells chemicals and polymers, refines crude oil, produces gasoline blending components, and develops and licenses technologies for the production of polymers. LyondellBasell has a market cap of $28.62 billion and is part of the basic materials sector and chemicals industry. The company has a P/E ratio of 15.1, below the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Shares are up 59.6% year to date as of the close of trading on Wednesday.

You can view the full LyondellBasell Ratings Report or get investment ideas from our investment research center.

--Written by a member of TheStreet Ratings Staff.

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