Retirement Planning Co of New England Inc. Invests $668,000 in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Retirement Planning Co of New England Inc. purchased a new position in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 10,655 shares of the energy company’s stock, valued at approximately $668,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. FMR LLC grew its stake in Shell by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 65,298,943 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $4,306,465,000 after purchasing an additional 3,255,347 shares during the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC grew its stake in Shell by 188.0% during the 3rd quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 3,014,199 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $198,786,000 after purchasing an additional 1,967,672 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new stake in Shell during the 4th quarter valued at about $91,716,000. Holocene Advisors LP grew its stake in Shell by 29.8% during the 3rd quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 3,773,617 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $248,870,000 after purchasing an additional 866,954 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its stake in Shell by 2.1% during the 3rd quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 24,530,647 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $1,617,796,000 after purchasing an additional 507,311 shares during the last quarter. 28.60% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have weighed in on the company. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on Shell from $86.00 to $82.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note 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 report on Friday, January 3rd. Morgan Stanley raised 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 report on Tuesday, January 7th. Piper Sandler decreased 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. Finally, UBS Group raised Shell from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a 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 assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Shell currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $79.11.

Shell Stock Performance

NYSE SHEL opened at $70.11 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $213.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.97, a PEG ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 0.47. Shell plc has a twelve month low of $60.15 and a twelve month high of $74.61. The company has a current ratio of 1.35, a quick ratio of 1.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $66.54 and a 200 day moving average of $66.19.

Shell (NYSE:SHEL) last released its quarterly 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%. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Shell plc will post 7.67 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Shell Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 14th will be issued a dividend of $0.716 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 14th. This represents a $2.86 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 4.09%. This is a boost from Shell’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.69. Shell’s dividend payout ratio is presently 56.97%.

About Shell

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.