Citi starts coverage of North America Chemicals with 7 Buys, 8 Neutrals

Citi initiated coverage of the North America Chemicals space with seven Buy ratings and eight Neutral rated stocks. Citi initiated coverage of Axalta Coating (AXTA), Air Products (APD), Albemarle (ALB), Eastman Chemical (EMN), Linde (LIN), PPG (PPG) and Sherwin-Williams (SHW) with Buys and initiated Celanese (CE), Dow Inc. (DOW), DuPont (DD), Ecolab (ECL), Huntsman (HUN), IFF (IFF), LyondellBasell (LYB) and Westlake (WL) with Neutral ratings. Among the group, the firm prefers exposure to lithium, paints and gases and argues that it is “too early to jump into heavy cyclical names” given macro and end market uncertainty. It lists Albemarle, Linde and Eastman as its top picks.