California Public Employees Retirement System Sells 16,402 Shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)

California Public Employees Retirement System lowered its stake in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 7.8% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 194,698 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 16,402 shares during the quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System’s holdings in Celanese were worth $13,475,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CE. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its stake in shares of Celanese by 103.7% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 381 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $26,000 after purchasing an additional 194 shares during the last quarter. CKW Financial Group lifted its holdings in Celanese by 52.9% during the 4th quarter. CKW Financial Group now owns 535 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $37,000 after buying an additional 185 shares in the last quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co increased its holdings in Celanese by 43.2% during the 4th quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co now owns 670 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $46,000 after purchasing an additional 202 shares during the period. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Celanese by 200.8% in the fourth quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 746 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $52,000 after acquiring an additional 498 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Brooklyn Investment Group raised its holdings in shares of Celanese by 51.1% in the 4th quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group now owns 1,129 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $78,000 after purchasing an additional 382 shares in the last quarter. 98.87% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have issued reports on CE shares. Piper Sandler cut their price target on shares of Celanese from $77.00 to $50.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, February 25th. KeyCorp raised Celanese from a “sector weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $76.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Friday, March 21st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut their price objective on Celanese from $92.00 to $54.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. StockNews.com cut shares of Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada downgraded Celanese from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $84.00 to $56.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 20th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have issued a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Celanese presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $65.61.

Celanese Stock Performance

Celanese stock opened at $40.83 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $59.42 and a 200 day moving average price of $82.15. Celanese Co. has a 52 week low of $39.62 and a 52 week high of $169.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $4.46 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.93, a PEG ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.23. The company has a current ratio of 1.34, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last released 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 the consensus estimate of $2.36 billion. Celanese had a negative net margin of 14.81% and a positive return on equity of 12.86%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Celanese Co. will post 8.79 earnings per share for the current year.

Celanese Cuts Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, March 11th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th were issued a $0.03 dividend. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.29%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 25th. Celanese’s dividend payout ratio is presently -0.86%.

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.