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

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 25th will be paid a dividend of 0.03 per share by the basic materials company on Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $0.12 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.18%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 25th.

Celanese has increased its dividend by an average of 1.0% annually over the last three years. Celanese has a payout ratio of 1.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Celanese to earn $8.79 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 1.4%.

Celanese Stock Down 1.7 %

NYSE:CE opened at $65.31 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $69.38 and a 200 day moving average of $100.52. Celanese has a 1-year low of $64.05 and a 1-year high of $172.16. The firm has a market cap of $7.14 billion, a PE ratio of 6.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 0.76.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Wells Fargo & Company cut Celanese from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and decreased their price objective for the stock from $165.00 to $115.00 in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. Bank of America upgraded Celanese from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $95.00 to $88.00 in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Vertical Research cut Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating and set a $130.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Tuesday, October 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded shares of Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and cut their price objective for the company from $135.00 to $110.00 in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of Celanese from $102.00 to $82.00 in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have issued a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $102.06.

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.