Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Reduce” from Analysts

Shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) have earned a consensus rating of “Reduce” from the seventeen ratings firms that are covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, nine have assigned a hold recommendation and three have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average twelve-month price target among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $110.50.

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on CE shares. Vertical Research cut shares of Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $130.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised shares of Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $135.00 to $110.00 in a research note on Wednesday, November 6th. Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on Celanese from $150.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. UBS Group downgraded Celanese from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $161.00 to $97.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company downgraded Celanese from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $165.00 to $115.00 in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th.

Institutional Trading of Celanese

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CE. ORG Partners LLC purchased a new position in Celanese in the second quarter valued at $40,000. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. increased its stake in shares of Celanese by 5.5% during the second quarter. Envestnet Portfolio Solutions Inc. now owns 5,621 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $758,000 after buying an additional 295 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its stake in shares of Celanese by 33.3% during the second quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 1,826 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $246,000 after buying an additional 456 shares during the period. Blue Trust Inc. lifted its stake in Celanese by 125.0% in the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 540 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $73,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James & Associates grew its holdings in Celanese by 4.0% during the 2nd quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 73,996 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $9,981,000 after acquiring an additional 2,862 shares in the last quarter. 98.87% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Celanese Stock Performance

CE opened at $67.03 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $7.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 6.74, a P/E/G ratio of 0.72 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 0.76. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $93.38 and a 200 day moving average price of $119.79. Celanese has a 1 year low of $66.99 and a 1 year high of $172.16.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last posted its earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The basic materials company reported $2.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.85 by ($0.41). The firm had revenue of $2.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.70 billion. Celanese had a return on equity of 13.17% and a net margin of 10.40%. The company’s revenue was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.50 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Celanese will post 8.38 earnings per share for the current year.

Celanese Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 13th. Investors of record on Wednesday, October 30th were issued a $0.70 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, October 30th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.18%. Celanese’s dividend payout ratio is presently 28.17%.

Celanese Company Profile

Celanese Corporation, a chemical and specialty materials company, manufactures and sells high performance engineered polymers in the United States and internationally. It operates through Engineered Materials and Acetyl Chain. The Engineered Materials segment develops, produces, and supplies specialty polymers for automotive and medical applications, as well as for use in industrial products and consumer electronics.