Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management Grows Stock Position in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management increased its position in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) by 13.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,310 shares of the energy company’s stock after purchasing an additional 502 shares during the quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management’s holdings in Shell were worth $284,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in SHEL. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Shell by 29.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 29,087,703 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,872,666,000 after purchasing an additional 6,554,340 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its position in Shell by 2.1% in the 4th quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 22,871,131 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,504,920,000 after purchasing an additional 477,432 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in shares of Shell by 4.3% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 9,356,191 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $602,352,000 after buying an additional 384,967 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its position in Shell by 10.7% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 8,742,878 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $562,866,000 after acquiring an additional 848,104 shares during the period. Finally, Pzena Investment Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Shell by 1.6% in the third quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 3,939,739 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $253,640,000 after purchasing an additional 61,583 shares in the last quarter. 28.60% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on SHEL. TheStreet upgraded Shell from a “c” rating to a “b-” rating in a report on Monday, January 29th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Shell from $88.00 to $91.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, TD Securities raised their target price on shares of Shell from $74.00 to $81.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $66.50.

Shell Trading Up 1.3 %

SHEL opened at $73.55 on Friday. Shell plc has a twelve month low of $55.78 and a twelve month high of $73.94. The firm has a market cap of $236.65 billion, a PE ratio of 13.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 0.59. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, a quick ratio of 1.14 and a current ratio of 1.42. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $69.23 and its two-hundred day moving average is $66.18.

Shell Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 24th. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th will be issued a $0.688 dividend. This represents a $2.75 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.74%. This is a positive change from Shell’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.66. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, May 16th. Shell’s payout ratio is 50.74%.

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.