Savant Capital LLC Acquires 702 Shares of Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Savant Capital LLC lifted its stake in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) by 4.5% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 16,311 shares of the energy company’s stock after purchasing an additional 702 shares during the period. Savant Capital LLC’s holdings in Shell were worth $1,022,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in SHEL. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Shell by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 65,298,943 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $4,306,465,000 after acquiring an additional 3,255,347 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Shell by 2.1% during the third quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 24,530,647 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,617,796,000 after purchasing an additional 507,311 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Shell by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 5,972,945 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $408,430,000 after buying an additional 55,637 shares during the period. Mawer Investment Management Ltd. raised its stake in Shell by 8.7% during the 3rd quarter. Mawer Investment Management Ltd. now owns 5,282,868 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $348,405,000 after buying an additional 422,329 shares during the period. Finally, Holocene Advisors LP grew its stake in Shell by 29.8% in the third quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 3,773,617 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $248,870,000 after acquiring an additional 866,954 shares during the period. 28.60% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Shell Stock Down 0.3 %

Shares of SHEL opened at $67.16 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $64.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $66.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a current ratio of 1.35. The firm has a market cap of $205.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 13.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 0.54. Shell plc has a 52 week low of $60.15 and a 52 week high of $74.61.

Shell (NYSE:SHEL) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The energy company reported $1.20 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.74 by ($0.54). Shell had a return on equity of 12.75% and a net margin of 5.57%. On average, analysts forecast that Shell plc will post 7.46 earnings per share for the current year.

Shell Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 24th. Investors of record on Friday, February 14th will be given a dividend of $0.716 per share. This represents a $2.86 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.26%. 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. Shell’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 54.78%.

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.