Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.03

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, April 16th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Monday, April 28th will be paid a dividend of 0.03 per share by the basic materials company on Monday, May 12th. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.32%.

Celanese has raised its dividend by an average of 1.0% per year over the last three years. Celanese has a payout ratio of 1.6% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Celanese to earn $10.10 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.12 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 1.2%.

Celanese Stock Performance

CE stock traded down $0.42 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $37.51. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 3,147,282 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,550,923. Celanese has a 1 year low of $36.29 and a 1 year high of $169.49. The stock has a market cap of $4.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.69, a PEG ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.08. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $53.75 and its 200 day moving average price is $76.44. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The basic materials company reported $1.45 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.25 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $2.37 billion for 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%. On average, equities analysts forecast that Celanese will post 8.79 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on CE shares. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price objective on Celanese from $55.00 to $40.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “underweight” rating and set a $48.00 price target (down previously from $50.00) on shares of Celanese in a research report on Monday, April 7th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered Celanese from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $84.00 to $56.00 in a report on Thursday, February 20th. Vertical Research upgraded shares of Celanese from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $66.00 target price for the company in a research report on Thursday, March 6th. Finally, UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of Celanese from $60.00 to $46.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 7th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, ten have assigned a hold rating and five have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $61.33.

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.