State of Alaska Department of Revenue Has $5.82 Million Stock Holdings in Celanese Corporation (NYSE:CE)

State of Alaska Department of Revenue lifted its holdings in shares of Celanese Corporation (NYSE:CE) by 722.7% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 102,568 shares of the basic materials company’s stock after purchasing an additional 90,101 shares during the quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue’s holdings in Celanese were worth $5,822,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC raised its stake in shares of Celanese by 20.8% in the 1st quarter. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC now owns 42,225 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $2,397,000 after acquiring an additional 7,275 shares in the last quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp grew its holdings in Celanese by 115.7% during the first quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 10,060 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $571,000 after purchasing an additional 5,397 shares during the last quarter. CX Institutional bought a new position in shares of Celanese in the first quarter valued at approximately $96,000. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its position in shares of Celanese by 340.3% in the first quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 27,059 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $1,536,000 after purchasing an additional 20,913 shares during the period. Finally, Yousif Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Celanese by 166.1% in the first quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 32,273 shares of the basic materials company’s stock worth $1,832,000 after buying an additional 20,144 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 98.87% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently commented on the stock. Alembic Global Advisors upgraded shares of Celanese from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and set a $70.00 target price on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. Vertical Research upgraded Celanese from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $66.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 6th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded Celanese from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the company from $45.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Monday. 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, May 7th. Finally, Mizuho set a $45.00 price objective on Celanese in a research report on Tuesday, April 15th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eleven have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $63.11.

Celanese Price Performance

Shares of Celanese stock opened at $54.40 on Friday. Celanese Corporation has a twelve month low of $36.29 and a twelve month high of $147.86. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.20, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.94. The firm has a market cap of $5.95 billion, a P/E ratio of -3.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 1.13. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $49.77 and its 200-day simple moving average is $57.96.

Celanese (NYSE:CE) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, May 5th. The basic materials company reported $0.57 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.37 by $0.20. Celanese had a positive return on equity of 11.28% and a negative net margin of 16.54%. 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 business earned $2.08 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 8.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Celanese Corporation will post 8.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Celanese Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Celanese

In other news, SVP Mark Christopher Murray acquired 1,479 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 23rd. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $52.18 per share, with a total value of $77,174.22. Following the completion of the purchase, the senior vice president now owns 15,468 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $807,120.24. This represents a 10.57% increase in their ownership of the stock. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.33% of the company’s stock.

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.