Brighton Jones LLC Purchases 670 Shares of Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Brighton Jones LLC raised its position in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) by 15.9% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 4,872 shares of the energy company’s stock after purchasing an additional 670 shares during the quarter. Brighton Jones LLC’s holdings in Shell were worth $321,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. FMR LLC lifted its position in Shell by 29.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 29,087,703 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $1,872,666,000 after acquiring an additional 6,554,340 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley boosted its position in shares of Shell by 4.3% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 9,356,191 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $602,352,000 after buying an additional 384,967 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its holdings in Shell by 10.7% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 8,742,878 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $562,866,000 after buying an additional 848,104 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its stake in Shell by 10.2% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 4,435,003 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $285,526,000 after acquiring an additional 409,016 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pzena Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Shell by 1.6% during the 3rd quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 3,939,739 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $253,640,000 after acquiring an additional 61,583 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 28.60% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on SHEL. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Shell from $88.00 to $91.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday. TD Securities increased their price objective on shares of Shell from $74.00 to $81.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, TheStreet raised Shell from a “c” rating to a “b-” rating in a report on Monday, January 29th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $66.50.

Shell Stock Performance

NYSE SHEL opened at $72.38 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a current ratio of 1.40. The company has a market capitalization of $232.89 billion, a PE ratio of 13.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.71 and a beta of 0.59. Shell plc has a 52-week low of $55.78 and a 52-week high of $73.94. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $68.43 and a 200 day simple moving average of $66.05.

Shell (NYSE:SHEL) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The energy company reported $2.22 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.94 by $0.28. Shell had a net margin of 5.83% and a return on equity of 13.78%. The company had revenue of $80.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $89.59 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.76 EPS. On average, research analysts predict that Shell plc will post 8.16 EPS for the current year.

Shell Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.688 per share. This is an increase from Shell’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.66. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $2.75 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.80%. Shell’s dividend payout ratio is presently 50.74%.

Shell Company Profile

Shell plc operates as an energy and petrochemical company Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, the United States, and Rest of the Americas. The company operates through Integrated Gas, Upstream, Marketing, Chemicals and Products, and Renewables and Energy Solutions segments. It explores for and extracts crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids; markets and transports oil and gas; produces gas-to-liquids fuels and other products; and operates upstream and midstream infrastructure to deliver gas to market.