Mediolanum International Funds Ltd Has $1.84 Million Stake in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)

Mediolanum International Funds Ltd reduced its stake in shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 13.9% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 13,206 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 2,139 shares during the quarter. Mediolanum International Funds Ltd’s holdings in Celanese were worth $1,836,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Wright Investors Service Inc. raised its holdings in Celanese by 0.6% during the first quarter. Wright Investors Service Inc. now owns 13,733 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,360,000 after buying an additional 78 shares in the last quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Celanese by 2.8% in the first quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC now owns 2,866 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $492,000 after purchasing an additional 79 shares during the period. Legacy Capital Group California Inc. increased its stake in shares of Celanese by 2.7% in the second quarter. Legacy Capital Group California Inc. now owns 3,441 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $464,000 after purchasing an additional 91 shares during the period. Jacobi Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Celanese by 3.1% in the first quarter. Jacobi Capital Management LLC now owns 3,188 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $548,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the period. Finally, Rosenberg Matthew Hamilton increased its stake in shares of Celanese by 13.4% in the second quarter. Rosenberg Matthew Hamilton now owns 839 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $110,000 after purchasing an additional 99 shares during the period. 98.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CE has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America decreased their target price on Celanese from $137.00 to $128.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Royal Bank of Canada decreased their price objective on Celanese from $167.00 to $163.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 11th. BMO Capital Markets decreased their price objective on Celanese from $142.00 to $138.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, August 7th. KeyCorp downgraded Celanese from an “overweight” rating to a “sector weight” rating in a report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Celanese from an “underweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $156.00 to $130.00 in a report on Monday, August 5th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $152.87.

Insider Buying and Selling

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

Celanese Stock Performance

CE stock opened at $128.87 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 0.74. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $130.06 and a 200 day moving average price of $139.51. Celanese Co. has a fifty-two week low of $110.76 and a fifty-two week high of $172.16. The stock has a market capitalization of $14.08 billion, a PE ratio of 7.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.30.

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). Celanese had a return on equity of 13.60% and a net margin of 18.24%. The company had revenue of $2.65 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.76 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.17 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.2% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Celanese Co. will post 10.32 EPS for the current year.

Celanese Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, November 13th. Investors of record on Wednesday, October 30th will be given a $0.70 dividend. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.17%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 30th. Celanese’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 15.41%.

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.