Celanese (NYSE:CE) Sets New 52-Week Low on Analyst Downgrade

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)’s share price reached a new 52-week low during mid-day trading on Tuesday after Piper Sandler lowered their price target on the stock from $77.00 to $50.00. Piper Sandler currently has an underweight rating on the stock. Celanese traded as low as $50.82 and last traded at $52.88, with a volume of 4729774 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $52.76.

CE has been the topic of several other research reports. Barclays reduced their price objective on shares of Celanese from $75.00 to $59.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. UBS Group reduced their price objective on shares of Celanese from $72.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on shares of Celanese from $75.00 to $55.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Royal Bank of Canada cut shares of Celanese from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $84.00 to $56.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price objective on shares of Celanese from $85.00 to $70.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $76.31.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CE. Dodge & Cox boosted its stake in Celanese by 100.3% during the fourth quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 13,618,062 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $942,506,000 after buying an additional 6,818,993 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Celanese during the fourth quarter worth $222,815,000. Turtle Creek Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in Celanese by 266.7% during the fourth quarter. Turtle Creek Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,506,440 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $242,681,000 after buying an additional 2,550,334 shares during the period. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. boosted its stake in Celanese by 4,506.7% during the fourth quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,344,661 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $162,274,000 after buying an additional 2,293,764 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its stake in Celanese by 27.4% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 9,460,353 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,286,230,000 after buying an additional 2,036,362 shares during the period. 98.87% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Celanese Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $5.76 billion, a PE ratio of -3.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $67.36 and its 200 day simple moving average is $95.42.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The basic materials company reported $1.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.25 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $2.37 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.36 billion. Celanese had a negative net margin of 14.81% and a positive return on equity of 12.86%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Celanese Co. will post 8.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Celanese Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 11th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th will be paid a dividend of $0.03 per share. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.23%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 25th. Celanese’s dividend payout ratio is currently -0.86%.

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.