Celanese Co. (CE) To Go Ex-Dividend on October 30th

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, October 17th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 30th will be given a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Wednesday, November 13th. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.06%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 30th.

Celanese has increased its dividend by an average of 4.1% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Celanese has a payout ratio of 22.2% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Celanese to earn $12.69 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $2.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 22.1%.

Celanese Price Performance

NYSE:CE opened at $135.97 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $14.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 7.48, a P/E/G ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.30. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $129.75 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $141.08. Celanese has a one year low of $110.76 and a one year high of $172.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The basic materials company reported $2.38 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $2.71 by ($0.33). The firm had revenue of $2.65 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.76 billion. Celanese had a return on equity of 13.60% and a net margin of 18.24%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.17 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Celanese will post 10.32 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Celanese

In other news, COO Scott A. Richardson sold 4,675 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $129.51, for a total value of $605,459.25. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 69,754 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,033,840.54. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 0.33% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price target on shares of Celanese from $180.00 to $165.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 5th. Piper Sandler downgraded shares of Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $180.00 to $150.00 in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Citigroup cut their price objective on Celanese from $167.00 to $148.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, June 27th. Barclays reduced their price objective on Celanese from $170.00 to $151.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, August 6th. Finally, Bank of America dropped their target price on Celanese from $137.00 to $128.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $152.87.

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.