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

Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE) announced 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 Monday, March 31st. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.18%.

Celanese has increased its dividend by an average of 1.0% annually over the last three years. Celanese has a payout ratio of 26.7% 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 $2.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 31.9%.

Celanese Stock Down 0.6 %

NYSE CE traded down $0.40 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $66.41. 1,604,276 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,119,837. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.26 billion, a PE ratio of 6.68, a PEG ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.47. Celanese has a 12 month low of $64.05 and a 12 month high of $172.16. The company has a 50 day moving average of $69.47 and a two-hundred day moving average of $100.76.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CE has been the subject of a number of research reports. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on Celanese from $102.00 to $82.00 in a research note on Thursday, December 5th. UBS Group lowered Celanese from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and decreased their target price for the stock from $161.00 to $97.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. BMO Capital Markets lowered Celanese from a “market perform” rating to an “underperform” rating and dropped their price target for the company from $138.00 to $76.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Robert W. Baird decreased their price objective on shares of Celanese from $150.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 6th. Finally, Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Celanese from $100.00 to $73.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have given a hold rating and four have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $102.06.

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.