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

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, July 17th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, July 30th will be given a dividend of 0.70 per share by the basic materials company on Monday, August 12th. This represents a $2.80 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.01%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, July 30th.

Celanese has increased its dividend by an average of 4.1% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 14 years. Celanese has a dividend payout ratio of 20.5% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Celanese to earn $13.56 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 20.6%.

Celanese Price Performance

Shares of CE stock opened at $139.08 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $142.23 and a 200-day moving average of $150.59. The company has a quick ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 1.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $15.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.65, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.60 and a beta of 1.30. Celanese has a 12-month low of $110.76 and a 12-month high of $172.16.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 8th. The basic materials company reported $2.08 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.91 by $0.17. Celanese had a return on equity of 14.00% and a net margin of 18.60%. The business had revenue of $2.61 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.67 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.01 EPS. Celanese’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Celanese will post 11.26 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on Celanese from $195.00 to $180.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, June 27th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Celanese from $171.00 to $176.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, May 13th. Bank of America cut their price objective on shares of Celanese from $147.00 to $144.00 and set an “underperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 10th. Citigroup decreased their target price on shares of Celanese from $167.00 to $148.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, June 27th. Finally, UBS Group cut their price target on shares of Celanese from $193.00 to $184.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, July 9th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Celanese currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $162.75.

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.