Brevan Howard Capital Management LP Purchases Shares of 45,581 Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE)

Brevan Howard Capital Management LP acquired a new position in shares of Celanese Co. (NYSE:CE - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 45,581 shares of the basic materials company's stock, valued at approximately $3,155,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Dodge & Cox increased its holdings in shares of Celanese by 100.3% during the fourth quarter. Dodge & Cox now owns 13,618,062 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $942,506,000 after acquiring an additional 6,818,993 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in Celanese by 105.0% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,969,284 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $274,714,000 after purchasing an additional 2,033,025 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Celanese in the fourth quarter worth $222,815,000. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Celanese by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,679,670 shares of the basic materials company's stock worth $184,998,000 after buying an additional 73,498 shares during the period. Finally, Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Celanese by 4,506.7% during the fourth quarter. Fuller & Thaler Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,344,661 shares of the basic materials company's stock valued at $162,274,000 after buying an additional 2,293,764 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 98.87% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have commented on the company. KeyCorp lifted their price target on Celanese from $71.00 to $76.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Wednesday. Alembic Global Advisors upgraded shares of Celanese from a "neutral" rating to an "overweight" rating and set a $70.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Mizuho set a $45.00 price objective on shares of Celanese in a research note on Tuesday, April 15th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered shares of Celanese from an "outperform" rating to a "sector perform" rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $84.00 to $56.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 20th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Celanese from a "sell" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Tuesday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have assigned a hold rating and five have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Hold" and a consensus target price of $61.89.

Celanese Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:CE traded down $0.46 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $51.25. The company's stock had a trading volume of 2,396,600 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,144,886. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.98, a quick ratio of 0.76 and a current ratio of 1.34. The business's 50 day simple moving average is $48.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $65.64. Celanese Co. has a 12-month low of $36.29 and a 12-month high of $161.94. The company has a market cap of $5.60 billion, a P/E ratio of -3.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.05 and a beta of 1.09.

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

Celanese Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, May 12th. Stockholders of record on Monday, April 28th will be issued a dividend of $0.03 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, April 28th. This represents a $0.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.23%. Celanese's dividend payout ratio is currently -0.86%.

Celanese 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.