Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. Raises Holdings in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. grew its holdings in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) by 10.3% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 94,441 shares of the energy company’s stock after purchasing an additional 8,815 shares during the period. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.’s holdings in Shell were worth $5,917,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of SHEL. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in Shell during the fourth quarter worth about $91,716,000. Holocene Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Shell by 29.8% during the 3rd quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 3,773,617 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $248,870,000 after purchasing an additional 866,954 shares during the period. Merewether Investment Management LP increased its holdings in Shell by 41.0% in the 3rd quarter. Merewether Investment Management LP now owns 1,544,764 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $101,877,000 after purchasing an additional 449,000 shares during the last quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its stake in Shell by 1.7% during the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 24,938,735 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,562,412,000 after purchasing an additional 408,088 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC grew its stake in shares of Shell by 16,663.4% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 307,440 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $19,261,000 after buying an additional 305,606 shares in the last quarter. 28.60% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

SHEL has been the topic of several research reports. TD Securities increased their target price on Shell from $81.00 to $82.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 19th. UBS Group raised shares of Shell from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Shell from $81.00 to $87.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Wolfe Research raised shares of Shell from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $80.00 price target for the company in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised Shell from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $66.50 to $79.80 in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and three have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $80.10.

Shell Stock Down 0.7 %

Shell stock opened at $72.74 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $67.68 and its two-hundred day moving average is $66.42. The stock has a market cap of $219.95 billion, a PE ratio of 14.49, a P/E/G ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 0.47. Shell plc has a 1-year low of $60.15 and a 1-year high of $74.61. 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 announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The energy company reported $1.20 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.74 by ($0.54). Shell had a net margin of 5.57% and a return on equity of 12.75%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Shell plc will post 7.67 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Shell Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 14th were issued 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 was Friday, February 14th. This represents a $2.86 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.94%. Shell’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 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.