BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp Cuts Holdings in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)

BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp decreased its position in shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 14.7% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 18,225 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 3,142 shares during the period. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp’s holdings in Celanese were worth $2,478,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Cetera Investment Advisers lifted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 64.1% in the 1st quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers now owns 27,107 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,659,000 after acquiring an additional 10,587 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 447.8% in the 1st quarter. Cetera Advisors LLC now owns 7,072 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,215,000 after acquiring an additional 5,781 shares during the last quarter. Capital Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 16.9% in the 2nd quarter. Capital Investment Advisors LLC now owns 8,196 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,105,000 after acquiring an additional 1,183 shares during the last quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 7.8% in the 2nd quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 15,611 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,106,000 after acquiring an additional 1,136 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 100.6% in the 2nd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 34,933 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $4,712,000 after acquiring an additional 17,521 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.87% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on CE. Wells Fargo & Company downgraded shares of Celanese from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $165.00 to $115.00 in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. BMO Capital Markets downgraded shares of Celanese from a “market perform” rating to an “underperform” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $138.00 to $76.00 in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Vertical Research downgraded shares of Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $130.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Barclays decreased their price target on shares of Celanese from $101.00 to $88.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Finally, Piper Sandler downgraded shares of Celanese from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $150.00 to $98.00 in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $120.59.

Celanese Trading Down 2.2 %

NYSE:CE opened at $70.90 on Thursday. Celanese Co. has a 12 month low of $70.40 and a 12 month high of $172.16. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $107.97 and a 200-day simple moving average of $125.99. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47. The company has a market capitalization of $7.75 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.13, a PEG ratio of 0.79 and a beta of 1.17.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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). Celanese had a return on equity of 13.17% and a net margin of 10.40%. The company had revenue of $2.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.70 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.50 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 2.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Celanese Co. will post 8.38 earnings per share for the current year.

Celanese Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, November 13th. Investors of record on Wednesday, October 30th were given a dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, October 30th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.95%. 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.