RBC Capital analyst Arun Viswanathan lowered his price target on Westlake Chemical to $63 and kept his Sector Perform rating after its below-consensus Q4 earnings. The analyst notes that the miss was driven by weak primary demand and expects prices to remain subdued in the near term. Viswanathan adds that further EBITDA deterioration is possible given that the impact of coronavirus appears to be spreading.

As previously reported, Deutsche Bank analyst David Begleiter upgraded Westlake to Buy from Hold with a price target of $174, up from $138. Shares have outperformed over the last 12 months, but the analyst argues its "not too late" as this outperformance has occurred despite weak fundamentals in each of Westlake's its commodity chains. Investors have focused on and rewarded Westlake for its building products business, a leading North American supplier in the premium roofing, sliding, trim and shutter, decorative stone and windows business. While stating that "sum of the parts stories rarely, if ever, work," the firm believes Westlake "could be on one of the rare sum of the parts stories does work."