Eastman Chemical stock gains after $500 million ASR announced

Shares of Eastman Chemical Co. EMN, +0.21% rose 0.9% in premarket trading Friday, after the specialty materials company announced a $500 million accelerated share repurchase (ASR) program. Based on the stock’s Thursday’s closing price of $105.67, the ASR represents about 3.7% of Eastman’s market capitalization of $13.62 billion. The company said after the ASR is completed, it will still have authorization to buy back $2.12 billion under existing share repurchase programs. The stock has dropped 12.6% year to date through Thursday, while the S&P 500 SPX, -0.57% has lost 13.0%.