ProShare Advisors LLC Purchases 6,895 Shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)

ProShare Advisors LLC boosted its position in Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) by 24.7% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 34,798 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 6,895 shares during the quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC’s holdings in Celanese were worth $2,408,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of CE. Altshuler Shaham Ltd bought a new position in shares of Celanese in the fourth quarter worth $25,000. UMB Bank n.a. increased its stake in Celanese by 103.7% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 381 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 194 shares during the last quarter. CKW Financial Group increased its stake in Celanese by 52.9% in the 4th quarter. CKW Financial Group now owns 535 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $37,000 after acquiring an additional 185 shares during the last quarter. LRI Investments LLC raised its holdings in shares of Celanese by 739.1% in the 4th quarter. LRI Investments LLC now owns 537 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $37,000 after acquiring an additional 473 shares in the last quarter. Finally, CENTRAL TRUST Co boosted its position in shares of Celanese by 43.2% during the 4th quarter. CENTRAL TRUST Co now owns 670 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $46,000 after acquiring an additional 202 shares during the last quarter. 98.87% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Celanese Price Performance

Shares of Celanese stock opened at $53.70 on Wednesday. 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 Co. has a one year low of $36.29 and a one year high of $156.50. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $48.41 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $61.59. The stock has a market capitalization of $5.87 billion, a P/E ratio of -3.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.09.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last issued its earnings results on Monday, May 5th. The basic materials company reported $0.57 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.37 by $0.20. Celanese had a negative net margin of 14.81% and a positive return on equity of 12.86%. The company had revenue of $2.39 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.26 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.08 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.5% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Celanese Co. will post 8.79 EPS for the current year.

Celanese Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, May 12th. Shareholders of record on Monday, April 28th were given a $0.03 dividend. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.22%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, April 28th. Celanese’s payout ratio is -0.79%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on CE. Piper Sandler restated an “underweight” rating and issued a $48.00 price objective (down from $50.00) on shares of Celanese in a research report on Monday, April 7th. Evercore ISI decreased their price target on shares of Celanese from $85.00 to $75.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 24th. UBS Group lowered their price objective 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. Alembic Global Advisors upgraded shares of Celanese from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $70.00 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Finally, Vertical Research upgraded Celanese from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $66.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Thursday, March 6th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have issued a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Celanese currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $61.94.

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.