Private Advisor Group LLC Sells 6,888 Shares of Xcel Energy Inc. $XEL

Private Advisor Group LLC reduced its stake in Xcel Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:XEL) by 10.8% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 56,646 shares of the company’s stock after selling 6,888 shares during the quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC’s holdings in Xcel Energy were worth $4,500,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Barclays PLC raised its stake in Xcel Energy by 63.6% during the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 9,979,397 shares of the company’s stock valued at $737,078,000 after buying an additional 3,881,011 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in shares of Xcel Energy by 16.9% during the fourth quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 24,572,438 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,814,920,000 after acquiring an additional 3,546,423 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE increased its holdings in shares of Xcel Energy by 9.9% during the third quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 28,851,485 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,326,872,000 after acquiring an additional 2,589,406 shares in the last quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA raised its position in shares of Xcel Energy by 37.1% in the 1st quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 8,871,863 shares of the company’s stock worth $704,780,000 after purchasing an additional 2,399,089 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Boston Partners raised its position in shares of Xcel Energy by 4,530.7% in the 4th quarter. Boston Partners now owns 2,024,541 shares of the company’s stock worth $149,538,000 after purchasing an additional 1,980,821 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 78.38% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently commented on XEL. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of Xcel Energy from $91.00 to $87.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, May 12th. Jefferies Financial Group set a $101.00 target price on shares of Xcel Energy in a research note on Tuesday. BTIG Research reissued a “buy” rating and set a $98.00 price target on shares of Xcel Energy in a research report on Friday, June 26th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Xcel Energy from $90.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $89.00 price objective on Xcel Energy in a research report on Wednesday, June 24th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Xcel Energy has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $91.82.

Xcel Energy Trading Up 0.4%

Shares of XEL stock opened at $80.67 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 0.77, a quick ratio of 0.68 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45. Xcel Energy Inc. has a 12-month low of $66.56 and a 12-month high of $84.23. The stock has a market capitalization of $50.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.25, a P/E/G ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 0.39. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $79.66 and its 200 day moving average is $78.75.

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ:XEL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The company reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.91. The firm had revenue of $4.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.21 billion. Xcel Energy had a return on equity of 10.37% and a net margin of 14.14%.The company’s revenue was up 2.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.84 EPS. Research analysts expect that Xcel Energy Inc. will post 4.11 earnings per share for the current year.

Xcel Energy Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 20th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 15th will be given a $0.5925 dividend. This represents a $2.37 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.9%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 15th. Xcel Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 68.30%.

About Xcel Energy

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ: XEL) is a Minneapolis-based, publicly traded utility holding company that develops, owns and operates regulated electricity and natural gas delivery systems. The company’s core activities include generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, the delivery of natural gas to customers, and related customer service operations. Xcel provides a mix of utility services to residential, commercial and industrial customers and participates in wholesale energy markets where appropriate.

Its generation portfolio combines nuclear, natural gas, coal and a growing share of renewable resources such as wind and solar.