Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. Reduces Position in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)

Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. decreased its stake in shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 15.9% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 6,510 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after selling 1,234 shares during the quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc.’s holdings in Celanese were worth $451,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of CE. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 27.4% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 9,460,353 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,286,230,000 after purchasing an additional 2,036,362 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 3.1% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,500,813 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $611,931,000 after purchasing an additional 136,994 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 7.3% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,606,172 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $353,145,000 after purchasing an additional 177,552 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 4.7% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,037,757 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $71,823,000 after purchasing an additional 46,856 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans boosted its holdings in shares of Celanese by 608.2% during the third quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 689,570 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $93,754,000 after purchasing an additional 592,196 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.87% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on CE shares. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their price objective on Celanese from $75.00 to $55.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Barclays decreased their price objective on Celanese from $75.00 to $59.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, February 24th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on Celanese from $102.00 to $82.00 in a report on Thursday, December 5th. Vertical Research upgraded Celanese from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $66.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday. Finally, Robert W. Baird reduced their target price on Celanese from $110.00 to $67.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Three investment 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 data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $72.31.

Celanese Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of CE opened at $55.28 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $65.01 and its two-hundred day moving average is $91.95. The stock has a market cap of $6.04 billion, a PE ratio of -3.97, a P/E/G ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.23. Celanese Co. has a 12 month low of $45.94 and a 12 month high of $172.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98, a current ratio of 1.34 and a quick ratio of 0.76.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The basic materials company reported $1.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.25 by $0.20. Celanese had a positive return on equity of 12.86% and a negative net margin of 14.81%. The business had revenue of $2.37 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.36 billion. Equities analysts forecast that Celanese Co. will post 8.79 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Celanese Cuts Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, March 11th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 25th will be given a dividend of $0.03 per share. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 25th. Celanese’s payout ratio is -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.