Commonwealth Equity Services LLC Buys 30,760 Shares of Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Commonwealth Equity Services LLC lifted its holdings in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) by 9.2% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 364,343 shares of the energy company’s stock after buying an additional 30,760 shares during the quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC’s holdings in Shell were worth $23,974,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in Shell by 29.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 29,087,703 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,872,666,000 after acquiring an additional 6,554,340 shares in the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its position in Shell by 2.1% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 22,871,131 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,504,920,000 after purchasing an additional 477,432 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley lifted its holdings in shares of Shell by 4.3% during the 3rd 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 period. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its stake in shares of Shell by 10.7% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 8,742,878 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $562,866,000 after acquiring an additional 848,104 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pzena Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in Shell by 1.6% in the 3rd quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 3,939,739 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $253,640,000 after purchasing an additional 61,583 shares during the period. 28.60% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

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

Shell Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of SHEL opened at $72.37 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $232.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 0.59. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $68.43 and its 200-day simple moving average is $66.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.14. Shell plc has a 1 year low of $55.78 and a 1 year high of $73.94.

Shell (NYSE:SHEL) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 1st. The energy company reported $2.22 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.94 by $0.28. The business had revenue of $80.13 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $89.59 billion. Shell had a return on equity of 13.83% and a net margin of 5.83%. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.76 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Shell plc will post 8.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Shell Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.688 per share. This represents a $2.75 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.80%. This is a positive change from Shell’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.66. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th. Shell’s 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.