Cetera Investment Advisers Cuts Stake in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)

Cetera Investment Advisers cut its stake in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 2.7% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 18,399 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 513 shares during the quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers’ holdings in Celanese were worth $1,273,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Barclays PLC boosted its stake in Celanese by 14.0% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 281,709 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $38,300,000 after acquiring an additional 34,658 shares during the period. HB Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Celanese by 35.0% in the fourth quarter. HB Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,041 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $210,000 after buying an additional 789 shares in the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. increased its holdings in shares of Celanese by 103.7% in the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 381 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 194 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its holdings in shares of Celanese by 23.1% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 6,146 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $425,000 after buying an additional 1,152 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Exchange Traded Concepts LLC raised its stake in Celanese by 81.4% during the 4th quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 1,190 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $82,000 after purchasing an additional 534 shares during the period. 98.87% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada downgraded shares of Celanese from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and cut their target price for the company from $84.00 to $56.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Evercore ISI lowered their target price on shares of Celanese from $85.00 to $75.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their price target on shares of Celanese from $92.00 to $54.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Alembic Global Advisors upgraded shares of Celanese from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $70.00 target price for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Finally, KeyCorp increased their target price on shares of Celanese from $71.00 to $76.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $61.94.

Celanese Stock Performance

NYSE CE opened at $53.57 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98. The firm has a market cap of $5.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.85, a PEG ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.09. The company has a 50 day moving average of $48.23 and a 200-day moving average of $61.04. Celanese Co. has a 1-year low of $36.29 and a 1-year high of $154.08.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 5th. The basic materials company reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by $0.20. Celanese had a negative net margin of 14.81% and a positive return on equity of 12.86%. The business had revenue of $2.39 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.26 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.08 earnings per share. Celanese’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that Celanese Co. will post 8.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Celanese Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 12th. Shareholders of record on Monday, April 28th were issued a dividend of $0.03 per share. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, April 28th. Celanese’s dividend payout ratio is presently -0.79%.

Celanese 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.