Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) Shares Sold by Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC

Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC lowered its stake in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 2.0% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 40,002 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 834 shares during the period. Patton Albertson Miller Group LLC’s holdings in Celanese were worth $5,439,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of CE. DT Investment Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Celanese by 128.8% in the third quarter. DT Investment Partners LLC now owns 183 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 103 shares during the period. Fairscale Capital LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Celanese in the second quarter valued at approximately $28,000. LRI Investments LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Celanese in the first quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Key Financial Inc boosted its stake in shares of Celanese by 3,933.3% in the second quarter. Key Financial Inc now owns 242 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $33,000 after buying an additional 236 shares in the last quarter. Finally, ORG Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Celanese in the second quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.87% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently weighed in on CE. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price target on Celanese from $163.00 to $122.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, November 7th. KeyCorp downgraded Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on Celanese from $140.00 to $100.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded Celanese from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $165.00 to $115.00 in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. Finally, UBS Group downgraded Celanese from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $161.00 to $97.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $120.59.

Celanese Stock Performance

Celanese stock opened at $76.54 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.70, a PEG ratio of 0.77 and a beta of 1.31. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $116.72 and a 200 day moving average price of $130.56. Celanese Co. has a 52 week low of $71.38 and a 52 week high of $172.16. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, November 4th. The basic materials company reported $2.44 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.85 by ($0.41). The firm had revenue of $2.65 billion for 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 business’s revenue was down 2.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.50 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Celanese Co. will post 8.67 earnings per share for the current year.

Celanese Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 13th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 30th were paid a dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, October 30th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.66%. Celanese’s dividend payout ratio is presently 28.17%.

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.