Capital Research & Management Co recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Celanese Corp (NYSE:CE). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Basic Materials company by 43.45% to 14.34 million shares with purchase of 4.34 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 13.18% valued currently at $1.99 billion. In addition, The Vanguard Group, Inc. raised its holdings by 0.33 million to 12.32 million shares. And Capital Research & Management Co has lifted its position by 121.69% or 6.04 million shares – to 11.01 million shares.
With over 0.44 million Celanese Corp (CE) shares trading Friday and a closing price of $155.37 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $68.34 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 34.17% and its price on 12/29/23 lost nearly -1.25%. Currently, there are 108.47M common shares owned by the public and among those 108.42M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 24 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for CE have a consensus price objective of $138.97. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $169.00 and a low of $116.00. The average price target is -11.8% below its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -33.94% over that period. But an upside of 8.07% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $137.50.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 29 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 17 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 116,896 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 12 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 48,459 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Celanese Corp are American Funds Investment Company, Washington Mutual Investors Fund, and American Funds Growth Fund of Ame. American Funds Investment Company owns 7.37 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.02 billion. The company bought an additional 1.57 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 6.77% of the shares outstanding. Washington Mutual Investors Fund bought 5.3 million shares to see its total holdings expand to 6.97 million shares valued at over $965.79 million and representing 6.40% of the shares outstanding. American Funds Growth Fund of Ame bought 2.92 million shares to bring its total holdings to over 6.83 million shares at a value of $947.31 million. American Funds Growth Fund of Ame now owns shares totaling to 6.28% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Celanese Corp (NYSE: CE) opened at $157.01, down -$0.32 from a prior closing price of $157.33. However, the script later moved the day high at 157.64, down -1.25%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 0.67% and 23.78% over the past three months. CE shares are trading 51.97% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 54.60% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $97.12 and touched a high of $159.06 over the same period. CE has an average intraday trading volume of 841.48K shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 5.17%, 17.59%, and 30.16% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Celanese Corp (NYSE: CE) shares accounts for 106.02% of the company’s 108.47M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 30.55%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 76.53% and 30.28% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $16.91B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 1.34. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 8.37, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $18.56. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.55% over the week and 1.95% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Celanese Corp (CE) will achieve an EPS of $2.31 for the current quarter, $2.61 for the next quarter and $11.9 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $2.08 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $2.46. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $1.44 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to decrease by -43.27%, and 32.34% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of -3.58% over the next five years, compared to 23.26% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 24 brokerage firm advisors rate Celanese Corp (CE) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.46. Specifically, 6 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 13 of the 24 advise that investors “hold,” and 0 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the CE, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Piper Sandler stated their Neutral rating for the stock in a research note on November 21, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $112-$135.
