Stock Traders Buy High Volume of Call Options on Shell (NYSE:SHEL)

Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Monday. Stock investors purchased 18,985 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 170% compared to the typical volume of 7,030 call options.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in SHEL. Rothschild Investment LLC IL boosted its position in shares of Shell by 3.2% in the 3rd quarter. Rothschild Investment LLC IL now owns 7,015 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $452,000 after purchasing an additional 216 shares in the last quarter. Elevated Capital Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Shell by 2.2% in the 3rd quarter. Elevated Capital Advisors LLC now owns 9,459 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $609,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. 1900 Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Shell by 5.9% in the 3rd quarter. 1900 Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,672 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $236,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares in the last quarter. BTC Capital Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Shell by 5.3% in the 3rd quarter. BTC Capital Management Inc. now owns 17,986 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $1,158,000 after purchasing an additional 906 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Kozak & Associates Inc. lifted its position in Shell by 1.8% in the 3rd quarter. Kozak & Associates Inc. now owns 11,203 shares of the energy company’s stock valued at $723,000 after acquiring an additional 202 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 28.60% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Separately, TheStreet raised Shell from a “c” rating to a “b-” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th.

Shell Trading Up 0.5 %

NYSE SHEL opened at $72.76 on Wednesday. Shell has a 1-year low of $55.78 and a 1-year high of $73.94. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $67.03 and a 200-day moving average of $65.72. The firm has a market cap of $234.11 billion, a PE ratio of 12.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.22 and a beta of 0.62.

Shell (NYSE:SHEL) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 1st. The energy company reported $2.22 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.94 by $0.28. Shell had a return on equity of 14.69% and a net margin of 5.99%. The company had revenue of $80.13 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $89.59 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.76 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Shell will post 8.12 EPS for the current year.

Shell Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 25th. Investors of record on Friday, February 16th were issued a dividend of $0.662 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 15th. This represents a $2.65 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.64%. Shell’s dividend payout ratio is presently 48.59%.

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.