Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Purchases 14,782 Shares of Xcel Energy Inc. $XEL

Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its position in Xcel Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:XEL) by 6.4% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 246,455 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 14,782 shares during the quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc.’s holdings in Xcel Energy were worth $18,203,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in XEL. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its holdings in Xcel Energy by 9.9% in 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 during the last quarter. Barclays PLC boosted its holdings in Xcel Energy by 54.3% in the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 6,098,386 shares of the company’s stock valued at $491,835,000 after acquiring an additional 2,145,063 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Xcel Energy by 2.7% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 76,725,720 shares of the company’s stock valued at $6,187,929,000 after acquiring an additional 2,001,018 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Xcel Energy by 5.1% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 35,896,553 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,914,984,000 after acquiring an additional 1,752,296 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in Xcel Energy by 100.3% during the second quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. now owns 2,519,061 shares of the company’s stock worth $171,548,000 after buying an additional 1,261,439 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 78.38% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on XEL. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on Xcel Energy from $94.00 to $91.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 14th. UBS Group raised their target price on Xcel Energy from $89.00 to $91.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 20th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Xcel Energy from $90.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Weiss Ratings upgraded Xcel Energy from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Friday, March 20th. Finally, Truist Financial reduced their target price on Xcel Energy from $95.00 to $92.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, May 18th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have assigned a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $90.63.

Xcel Energy Price Performance

Shares of XEL opened at $79.04 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $49.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 22.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.02 and a beta of 0.39. The company has a current ratio of 0.77, a quick ratio of 0.68 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.45. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $79.81 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $78.51. Xcel Energy Inc. has a 1 year low of $65.21 and a 1 year high of $84.23.

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ:XEL) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The company reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91. The company had revenue of $4.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.21 billion. Xcel Energy had a return on equity of 10.37% and a net margin of 14.14%.Xcel Energy’s revenue was up 2.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.84 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts predict that Xcel Energy Inc. will post 4.11 earnings per share for the current year.

Xcel Energy Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, July 20th. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 15th will be given a dividend of $0.5925 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.37 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.0%. Xcel Energy’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 68.30%.

Xcel Energy Company Profile

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.