Celanese Co. (CE) To Go Ex-Dividend on October 30th

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 17th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Wednesday, October 30th will be given a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Wednesday, November 13th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.17%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 30th.

Celanese has raised its dividend payment by an average of 4.1% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 14 consecutive years. Celanese has a dividend payout ratio of 22.4% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Celanese to earn $12.69 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 22.1%.

Celanese Trading Down 0.7 %

Celanese stock opened at $128.87 on Monday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $130.06 and a 200 day moving average price of $139.51. Celanese has a 52 week low of $110.76 and a 52 week high of $172.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $14.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.09, a P/E/G ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.30.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $2.38 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.71 by ($0.33). Celanese had a return on equity of 13.60% and a net margin of 18.24%. The firm had revenue of $2.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.76 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.17 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that Celanese will post 10.32 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on CE shares. Barclays decreased their target price on shares of Celanese from $170.00 to $151.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, August 6th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their target price on shares of Celanese from $142.00 to $138.00 and set a “market perform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, August 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Celanese from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $156.00 to $130.00 in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Royal Bank of Canada cut their price target on shares of Celanese from $167.00 to $163.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 11th. Finally, KeyCorp downgraded shares of Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Monday, October 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Celanese has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $152.87.

Insider Transactions at Celanese

In other news, COO Scott A. Richardson sold 4,675 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.51, for a total transaction of $605,459.25. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 69,754 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,033,840.54. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

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.