Analysts have been eager to weigh in on the Consumer Goods sector with new ratings on VF Corp (VFC) and Celanese Corp (CE).
VF Corp (VFC)
In a report released today, Mitch Kummetz from Pivotal Research reiterated a Hold rating on VF Corp, with a price target of $85. The company’s shares closed on Friday at $82.34.
Kummetz said:
“We have been hyper-focused on Vans of late, and, while Vans accounts for only ~1/4 of the company, it represented nearly 2/3 of VFC’s growth in the quarter. In short, we thought Vans growth would be down on a 2- year stack, and it was up. We thought it would be down because we believed that Vans demand (as measured by y/y Google search volume) had softened. That said, as we parse the Vans numbers, we see that DTC growth was down on a 2-year stack, and we view DTC as a better gauge of end demand than wholesale, as DTC reflects sales to the consumer, while wholesale reflects sell-in to retailers.”
According to TipRanks.com, Kummetz is a 4-star analyst with an average return of 5.7% and a 63.3% success rate. Kummetz covers the Services sector, focusing on stocks such as Foot Locker Inc, Shoe Carnival, and Genesco Inc.
VF Corp has an analyst consensus of Moderate Buy, with a price target consensus of $90.36, which is a 9.7% upside from current levels. In a report issued on January 11, Deutsche Bank also downgraded the stock to Hold with a $76 price target.
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Celanese Corp (CE)
Alembic Global analyst Hassan Ahmed maintained a Sell rating on Celanese Corp today. The company’s shares closed on Friday at $97.81.
Ahmed said:
“We highlight signs of decelerating growth in the auto end-market, which represents around 33% of AEM segment sales. the company’s assets in Celanese generating 14% of overall revenue from that country, any “trade war”-related slowdown may also present a risk. Using our proprietary multi-factor rating model¾which incorporates rate sensitivity, debt sensitivity, China exposure, auto exposure, EPS revisions (the more negative, the better), and share price revisions (again, the more negative, the better)¾we rank-order our coverage universe and come up with a blended ranking based on these factors. Within this framework, Celanese ranks poorest amongst our U.S. coverage universe. Despite even the recent declines in the company’s share price, we make the case that CE will struggle to outperform in an environment where negative earnings revisions may transpire.”
According to TipRanks.com, Ahmed has 0 stars on 0-5 star ranking scale with an average return of -6.3% and a 35.3% success rate. Ahmed covers the Consumer Goods sector, focusing on stocks such as Westlake Chemical Corp, Venator Materials Plc, and LyondellBasell.
Currently, the analyst consensus on Celanese Corp is a Moderate Buy with an average price target of $111.
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