Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) Position Lifted by Blue Trust Inc.

Blue Trust Inc. raised its stake in shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 40.5% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,804 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after acquiring an additional 520 shares during the quarter. Blue Trust Inc.’s holdings in Celanese were worth $125,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 2,036,362 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Celanese by 3.1% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,500,813 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $611,931,000 after buying an additional 136,994 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Celanese by 7.3% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,606,172 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $353,145,000 after purchasing an additional 177,552 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Celanese by 7.6% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 990,901 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $134,723,000 after purchasing an additional 69,606 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans lifted its position in shares of Celanese by 608.2% in the 3rd quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 689,570 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $93,754,000 after buying an additional 592,196 shares during the last quarter. 98.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CE has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. BMO Capital Markets cut their target price on shares of Celanese from $73.00 to $46.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday. Vertical Research downgraded Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $130.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price objective on shares of Celanese from $102.00 to $82.00 in a research note on Thursday, December 5th. Mizuho cut their price objective on shares of Celanese from $120.00 to $86.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Celanese from $100.00 to $80.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $83.53.

Celanese Stock Up 0.3 %

Shares of Celanese stock opened at $52.75 on Friday. Celanese Co. has a 12-month low of $51.24 and a 12-month high of $172.16. The firm has a market capitalization of $5.77 billion, a PE ratio of -3.79, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.10 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 stock’s fifty day moving average is $68.25 and its 200-day moving average is $97.16.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last released its quarterly 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. Celanese had a negative net margin of 14.81% and a positive return on equity of 12.86%. The business had revenue of $2.37 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.36 billion. Equities analysts anticipate that Celanese Co. will post 8.79 earnings per share for the current year.

Celanese Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 31st. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 25th will be given a dividend of $0.03 per share. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.23%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 25th. Celanese’s payout ratio is -20.10%.

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.