BMO Capital analyst John McNulty lowered his price target on Westlake Chemical to $70 and kept his Market Perform rating after its Q4 earnings miss and "incrementally cautious" conference call commentary, driven by the "unquantifiable" impact of China coronavirus outbreak. The analyst further cites "continued macro uncertainty" behind his neutral stance, though he sees the strategy of capital preservation taken by Westlake's management as prudent.

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."