Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC Increases Stake in Xcel Energy Inc. $XEL

Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC increased its stake in Xcel Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:XEL) by 2.2% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 572,498 shares of the company’s stock after buying an additional 12,192 shares during the period. Wealth Enhancement Advisory Services LLC’s holdings in Xcel Energy were worth $42,613,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Xcel Energy by 2.7% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 76,725,720 shares of the company’s stock worth $6,187,929,000 after purchasing an additional 2,001,018 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Xcel Energy by 5.1% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 35,896,553 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,914,984,000 after purchasing an additional 1,752,296 shares during the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE grew its stake in shares of Xcel Energy by 9.9% during the 3rd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 28,851,485 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,326,872,000 after buying an additional 2,589,406 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in shares of Xcel Energy by 4.1% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 21,026,015 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,695,748,000 after buying an additional 831,639 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its holdings in shares of Xcel Energy by 4.3% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 19,526,873 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,574,842,000 after buying an additional 807,353 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 78.38% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

XEL has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley set a $91.00 target price on Xcel Energy in a report on Friday, February 20th. UBS Group upgraded Xcel Energy from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $81.00 to $89.00 in a research note on Friday, February 13th. BTIG Research set a $94.00 price objective on Xcel Energy in a report on Friday, January 30th. BMO Capital Markets reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $90.00 price objective on shares of Xcel Energy in a research note on Friday, February 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Xcel Energy from $90.00 to $87.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, December 11th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirteen have issued a Buy rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Xcel Energy presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $88.44.

Xcel Energy Stock Performance

NASDAQ:XEL opened at $76.95 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $79.07 and its 200 day simple moving average is $78.06. The company has a current ratio of 0.71, a quick ratio of 0.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.35. Xcel Energy Inc. has a twelve month low of $65.21 and a twelve month high of $84.23. The firm has a market capitalization of $48.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.50, a PEG ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.45.

Xcel Energy (NASDAQ:XEL) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 4th. The company reported $0.96 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.96. Xcel Energy had a return on equity of 10.46% and a net margin of 13.76%.The firm had revenue of $3.56 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.77 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.81 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 14.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Xcel Energy Inc. will post 3.82 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Xcel Energy Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 20th. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 13th will be paid a $0.5925 dividend. This represents a $2.37 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.1%. This is an increase from Xcel Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.57. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 13th. Xcel Energy’s payout ratio is 69.30%.

Xcel Energy 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.