Asset Management One Co. Ltd. Has $68,000 Stake in Celanese Corporation (NYSE:CE)

Asset Management One Co. Ltd. decreased its position in shares of Celanese Corporation (NYSE:CE) by 97.4% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 1,204 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 44,825 shares during the period. Asset Management One Co. Ltd.’s holdings in Celanese were worth $68,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Dodge & Cox increased its holdings in shares of Celanese by 100.3% during the 4th quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 13,618,062 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $942,506,000 after purchasing an additional 6,818,993 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Celanese in the fourth quarter valued at about $222,815,000. Turtle Creek Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Celanese by 266.7% in the fourth quarter. Turtle Creek Asset Management Inc. now owns 3,506,440 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $242,681,000 after acquiring an additional 2,550,334 shares during the period. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Celanese by 4,506.7% during the fourth quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,344,661 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $162,274,000 after buying an additional 2,293,764 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in Celanese by 105.0% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,969,284 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $274,714,000 after buying an additional 2,033,025 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 98.87% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have weighed in on CE. Mizuho set a $45.00 price objective on shares of Celanese in a research note on Tuesday, April 15th. BMO Capital Markets upgraded shares of Celanese from an “underperform” rating to a “market perform” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $46.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Tuesday, May 20th. KeyCorp upped their target price on shares of Celanese from $71.00 to $76.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 7th. Evercore ISI reduced their target price on shares of Celanese from $85.00 to $75.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 24th. Finally, Citigroup cut their price objective on shares of Celanese from $58.00 to $52.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, April 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have given a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $63.11.

Celanese Trading Up 5.2%

Shares of NYSE:CE opened at $58.18 on Wednesday. Celanese Corporation has a 12 month low of $36.29 and a 12 month high of $147.86. The company has a quick ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 1.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.20. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $52.43 and its 200 day simple moving average is $57.09. The firm has a market cap of $6.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.82, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 1.14.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last released its earnings results on Monday, May 5th. The basic materials company reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $2.39 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.26 billion. Celanese had a negative net margin of 16.54% and a positive return on equity of 11.28%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.08 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Celanese Corporation will post 8.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Celanese Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 12th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 28th were given a $0.03 dividend. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.21%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, April 28th. Celanese’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently -0.79%.

Insider Activity at Celanese

In other news, SVP Mark Christopher Murray acquired 1,479 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 23rd. The stock was bought at an average price of $52.18 per share, with a total value of $77,174.22. Following the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 15,468 shares in the company, valued at approximately $807,120.24. The trade was a 10.57% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.26% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

About Celanese

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.