Howard Capital Management Inc. Buys New Position in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL)

Howard Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) during the second quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor purchased 5,505 shares of the energy company’s stock, valued at approximately $397,000.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Team Hewins LLC bought a new position in shares of Shell during the 4th quarter worth approximately $769,000. Lazard Asset Management LLC grew its holdings in Shell by 21.0% in the first quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC now owns 44,896 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $3,009,000 after purchasing an additional 7,779 shares during the period. Raymond James & Associates raised its holdings in shares of Shell by 65.7% during the second quarter. Raymond James & Associates now owns 1,698,247 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $122,579,000 after purchasing an additional 673,624 shares during the period. Westwood Global Investments LLC boosted its position in shares of Shell by 14.4% during the 4th quarter. Westwood Global Investments LLC now owns 2,417,326 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $159,060,000 after purchasing an additional 304,871 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald Investment Advisors L.P. acquired a new stake in shares of Shell in the 4th quarter valued at about $22,628,000. 28.60% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

SHEL has been the topic of a number of research reports. Berenberg Bank raised Shell to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, August 5th. Scotiabank dropped their price objective on shares of Shell from $95.00 to $90.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, July 12th. Wells Fargo & Company dropped their price target on shares of Shell from $91.00 to $90.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 21st. Wolfe Research started coverage on Shell in a report on Thursday, July 18th. They issued a “peer perform” rating on the stock. Finally, Argus upped their price target on Shell from $77.00 to $79.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, June 6th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, four have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $85.00.

Shell Stock Performance

Shares of Shell stock opened at $66.91 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $211.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 12.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.59 and a beta of 0.57. The company has a current ratio of 1.41, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $72.05 and its 200 day simple moving average is $70.29. Shell plc has a 12 month low of $60.34 and a 12 month high of $74.61.

Shell (NYSE:SHEL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The energy company reported $1.97 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.82 by $0.15. Shell had a net margin of 5.97% and a return on equity of 14.56%. The company had revenue of $75.06 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $88.62 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.50 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Shell plc will post 8.58 EPS for the current year.

Shell Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, September 23rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 16th will be issued a dividend of $0.688 per share. This represents a $2.75 annualized dividend and a yield of 4.11%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 16th. Shell’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 50.74%.

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.