Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. Trims Holdings in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. lowered its stake in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) by 14.4% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 48,411 shares of the energy company’s stock after selling 8,149 shares during the quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.’s holdings in Shell were worth $3,033,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Stephens Inc. AR increased its holdings in Shell by 3.5% during the 3rd quarter. Stephens Inc. AR now owns 169,488 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $11,178,000 after acquiring an additional 5,800 shares during the period. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Shell by 1.3% in the third quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. now owns 23,081 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,522,000 after purchasing an additional 298 shares during the period. Capital Advisors Inc. OK raised its position in shares of Shell by 34.0% in the third quarter. Capital Advisors Inc. OK now owns 7,268 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $479,000 after buying an additional 1,846 shares in the last quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC grew its position in Shell by 9.5% during the third quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 8,706 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $574,000 after buying an additional 756 shares in the last quarter. Finally, James Investment Research Inc. increased its stake in Shell by 5.7% in the 3rd quarter. James Investment Research Inc. now owns 12,614 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $832,000 after acquiring an additional 682 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 28.60% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Shell Trading Up 0.2 %

NYSE SHEL opened at $67.42 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $65.49 and a 200-day moving average of $66.67. The company has a current ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. Shell plc has a 1-year low of $60.15 and a 1-year high of $74.61. The firm has a market cap of $205.03 billion, a PE ratio of 13.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 0.54.

Shell (NYSE:SHEL) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The energy company reported $1.20 earnings per share (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%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Shell plc will post 7.67 EPS for the current year.

Shell Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be issued a dividend of $0.716 per share. This is a positive change from Shell’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.69. This represents a $2.86 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.25%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 14th. Shell’s dividend payout ratio is currently 56.97%.

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.