Commonwealth Equity Services LLC Cuts Position in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Commonwealth Equity Services LLC cut its position in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) by 17.7% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 368,016 shares of the energy company’s stock after selling 79,038 shares during the quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC’s holdings in Shell were worth $23,056,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of SHEL. Valley National Advisers Inc. boosted its holdings in Shell by 930.2% in the fourth quarter. Valley National Advisers Inc. now owns 443 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 400 shares in the last quarter. Human Investing LLC purchased a new position in shares of Shell in the 4th quarter valued at $31,000. Brooklyn Investment Group acquired a new stake in Shell during the 3rd quarter worth $35,000. Sierra Ocean LLC acquired a new position in Shell in the fourth quarter valued at $39,000. Finally, Kieckhefer Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Shell during the fourth quarter worth about $40,000. 28.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on SHEL shares. Morgan Stanley upgraded Shell from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $66.50 to $79.80 in a research note on Tuesday, January 7th. UBS Group upgraded shares of Shell from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price objective on shares of Shell from $86.00 to $82.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on shares of Shell from $82.00 to $72.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Shell from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $80.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Shell has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $79.11.

Shell Stock Up 1.5 %

SHEL opened at $68.78 on Monday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $66.44 and a 200-day simple moving average of $66.21. Shell plc has a 12 month low of $60.15 and a 12 month high of $74.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $209.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.70, a P/E/G ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 0.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 1.35 and a quick ratio of 1.10.

Shell (NYSE:SHEL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The energy company reported $1.20 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.74 by ($0.54). Shell had a return on equity of 12.75% and a net margin of 5.57%. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Shell plc will post 7.67 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Shell Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be paid a dividend of $0.716 per share. This is a positive change from Shell’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.69. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 14th. This represents a $2.86 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 4.16%. Shell’s payout ratio is 56.97%.

Shell 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.