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

Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) was the target of unusually large options trading on Monday. Traders acquired 18,985 call options on the company. This is an increase of 170% compared to the average volume of 7,030 call options.

Shell Stock Performance

SHEL opened at $72.76 on Wednesday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $67.03 and a 200 day simple moving average of $65.72. The company has a market capitalization 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 has a 1 year low of $55.78 and a 1 year high of $73.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38, a current ratio of 1.40 and a quick ratio of 1.13.

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

Shell Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 25th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 16th were given 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 dividend yield of 3.64%. Shell’s payout ratio is 48.59%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Institutional Trading of Shell

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. FMR LLC lifted 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 valued at $1,872,666,000 after acquiring an additional 6,554,340 shares during the period. Fisher Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Shell by 2.1% during 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 buying an additional 477,432 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its position in shares of Shell by 4.3% during the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 9,356,191 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $602,352,000 after buying an additional 384,967 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of 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 buying an additional 848,104 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its position in shares of Shell by 2.4% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 6,173,651 shares of the energy company’s stock worth $406,226,000 after buying an additional 143,910 shares during the last quarter. 28.60% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Shell Company 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.