Barclays Issues Pessimistic Forecast for Celanese (NYSE:CE) Stock Price

Celanese (NYSE:CE) had its price objective trimmed by Barclays from $101.00 to $88.00 in a report issued on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an equal weight rating on the basic materials company’s stock.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued research reports about the company. Mizuho dropped their price objective on Celanese from $132.00 to $120.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, November 5th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price objective on Celanese from $163.00 to $122.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, November 7th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and dropped their price objective for the company from $135.00 to $110.00 in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Vertical Research downgraded Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $130.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, KeyCorp downgraded Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Monday, October 7th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $120.59.

Celanese Trading Down 1.1 %

Shares of CE opened at $72.19 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47. Celanese has a 12-month low of $71.45 and a 12-month high of $172.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.89 billion, a PE ratio of 7.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.31. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $119.54 and its 200-day simple moving average is $132.41.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its quarterly 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 analyst estimates of $2.70 billion. Celanese had a net margin of 10.40% and a return on equity of 13.17%. The company’s revenue was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.50 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Celanese will post 8.67 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 dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, October 30th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.88%. Celanese’s payout ratio is presently 28.17%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of CE. Covestor Ltd boosted its position in Celanese by 45.1% during the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 689 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $118,000 after purchasing an additional 214 shares during the last quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC boosted its position in Celanese by 13.4% during the first quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 14,608 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,511,000 after purchasing an additional 1,731 shares during the last quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd boosted its position in Celanese by 464.6% during the first quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd now owns 7,170 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,232,000 after purchasing an additional 5,900 shares during the last quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its position in Celanese by 264.2% during the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 19,441 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $3,342,000 after purchasing an additional 14,103 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Lake Street Advisors Group LLC acquired a new position in Celanese during the first quarter valued at approximately $380,000. 98.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Celanese

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.