Celanese Co. (CE) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.03 on March 11th

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 raised its dividend by an average of 1.0% per year over the last three years. Celanese has a payout ratio of 1.1% indicating that 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 Price Performance

Shares of Celanese stock opened at $65.31 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.76, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47. Celanese has a 52 week low of $64.05 and a 52 week high of $172.16. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $69.38 and its 200-day simple moving average is $100.52. The company has a market capitalization of $7.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 6.57, a PEG ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.17.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Robert W. Baird dropped their target price on shares of Celanese from $150.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on shares of Celanese from $102.00 to $82.00 in a report on Thursday, December 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Celanese from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $135.00 to $110.00 in a research report on Wednesday, November 6th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered Celanese from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $165.00 to $115.00 in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. Finally, Bank of America raised Celanese from an “underperform” rating to a “buy” rating and reduced their price objective for the stock from $95.00 to $88.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price 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.