Celanese (NYSE:CE) Given New $88.00 Price Target at Barclays

Celanese (NYSE:CE) had its target price cut by Barclays from $101.00 to $88.00 in a research report report published on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have an equal weight rating on the basic materials company’s stock.

Several other research analysts also recently commented on the company. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on Celanese from $150.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. KeyCorp downgraded Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on Celanese from $163.00 to $122.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, November 7th. Vertical Research downgraded Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $130.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company cut Celanese from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and lowered their price objective for the company from $165.00 to $115.00 in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have given a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $120.59.

Celanese Stock Down 1.1 %

CE opened at $72.19 on Tuesday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $119.54 and a 200 day moving average price of $132.41. Celanese has a twelve month low of $71.45 and a twelve month high of $172.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 1.37. The firm has a market cap of $7.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.76 and a beta of 1.31.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last posted its earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The basic materials company reported $2.44 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.85 by ($0.41). The company had revenue of $2.65 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.70 billion. Celanese had a return on equity of 13.17% and a net margin of 10.40%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.50 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Celanese will post 8.67 EPS for the current year.

Celanese Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 13th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 30th were given a $0.70 dividend. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.88%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, October 30th. Celanese’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 28.17%.

Institutional Trading of Celanese

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. KBC Group NV boosted its stake in Celanese by 155.5% in the third quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 213,657 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $29,049,000 after purchasing an additional 130,037 shares in the last quarter. National Pension Service boosted its stake in Celanese by 21.7% in the third quarter. National Pension Service now owns 233,480 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $31,744,000 after purchasing an additional 41,598 shares in the last quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Celanese by 447.8% in the first quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 7,072 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,215,000 after purchasing an additional 5,781 shares in the last quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its stake in Celanese by 264.2% in the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 19,441 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $3,342,000 after purchasing an additional 14,103 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its stake in Celanese by 608.2% in the third quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 689,570 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $93,754,000 after purchasing an additional 592,196 shares in the last quarter. 98.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.